


Of Our Past, a Better Future

by Alice_Marie



Series: Star Wars [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-03-08 05:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18888418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_Marie/pseuds/Alice_Marie
Summary: Welcome back! :)The path has split. Please, if you have not read the beginning point for this story.... From the Ashes : https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228559/chapters/37935014Then... This will probably be confusing!Thank you for coming along, we hope you enjoy the journey!-Alice & Marie





	1. Chapter 1

Vysera Ren stumbled into the 'fresher compartment. A precious... Sacred moment to herself.

She settled the bundle of clean clothes onto the counter, taking a deep breath.

Ben, as far as she could tell, had either fallen asleep or passed out. Again. Between and infuriating apathy and a gut wrenching despondency combined with his flagging health - the last several months had gone hardly according to any plan that Vysera may have had. 

She'd had to discard her ambitions and embrace a new chapter of torment and suffering. Mainly, she believed, her own and once again it was for his sake. For all her efforts, it seemed she was still tethered to him. His fate. A thought that brought her never ending frustration - of the two of them, their oaths binding one to the other... Hers was the only one proven time and time again. A thankless task.

Yet she was never hesitant to sink in the talons of guilt into Ben's fragile psyche. She was sick and tired of being used. Her counsel ignored, her sacrifices skimmed over. The loss of his little plaything may have been avoided if he had simply listened to her... And she was loath suffer alone, this time. She'd done that once before. Disappearing into the night and all the thanks she received was to return to a cold hearth - his heart had moved to a new hall. No, let him bathe in the guilt and pain just as she had done. It was the only way that this was all...

She gasped, her fingers tightened on the rim of the basin, her knuckles paling beyond her usual pallid complexion. She struggled to find an even rhythm of her breath. She was getting sick of the confines of this stupid ship... Tired of the struggle. A constant battle to keep a man alive who childishly seemed of have no desire to keep himself from slipping into death's arms. He had shown no interest in the healing of his wounds. Infection had set in and he hadn't bothered to mention it. It wasn't until he was moaning in his sleep, feverish and mad with delusions that she had become aware. Even in his delirium, he hadn't called her name. Always Rey.... Always his mother... His father. It hurt more than it had a right to. More than it should have. Nevertheless, it was unfortunate in many ways beyond the sentimental. Vys had never been a healer. She received no training of the sort. Her skillset was drenched unquestionably deep on the end of the spectrum.

Attempts to take him to independent healers had done no good - they knew his face. The Supreme Leader. She'd had to leave entire medical facilities burning and void of life simply to keep the rumors of spreading or more often the case - because of their refusal to treat him. 

Accosted First Order medical teams were... Quite influenced by their new Emperor. Their work, even under extreme duress was only a an emergency stop gap. Inevitably, their lives had to be spent, too. The Dark Side, while tremendously powerful and versatile... Lacked longevity when it came to restorative capabilities. On darker days, she'd ruefully comment on how unfortunate it was that the galaxy seemed to have lost it's only Jedi master, feuding with a petulant nephew... There were days when she'd thought if he had lived, that she might have brought Ben to him. That it would be worth the loss. Other days, she found herself contemplating the idea of simply letting him fade away…

He had been getting worse and worse... Like his grandmother. A weakness in his spirit. A will that lacked strength. So bound was his need to persist to a singular soul that with her light extinguished - he lacked the motivation to persist. It was insufferable. The whole thing! Yet forcing pain into him had not served to bolster him as its function had once served her when she had hit her lowest points. It was agony that had sharpened her to a fine point - a weapon. She was at a loss, unable to make an empathetic connection. Bled dry of sympathy long ago, she could offer no comfort there. It was driving her rather quickly to the point of breaking.

A small cry of pain slipped passed her crimson lips as she straightened, pale fingers working the fastenings of her shirt, shoving it off her shoulders. She didn't need her eyes to see... Hesitant probing fingers moved down the soft fabric wrapped tightly around her breasts to the flesh over her bare skin below them. She winced, hissing as her fingers skimmed over the morass of ruined flesh. Her nose wrinkled. It needed cleaned... Lest she succumb to infection as Ben nearly had. The Dark Side demanded a heavy price. 

The immense power was often too great to be channeled through a mortal shell for as often and as sustained as she'd been called upon to do. It was corrupting her body. She pulled her fingers away, hastening to strip down, stepping into the shower and turned the water on. It was agony. Her body was more than content to reveal to her where the bonds of her flesh were becoming weakened. As she moved her hands over her body, smoothing soap over her weary limbs, she could feel the ridges and swell of scar tissue. Lifting her hands to her face, now free of her mask... She sucked in a shuddering breath.

No wonder he was repulsed by her... 

Self pity. She rarely allowed herself to slip into that pit. But it came for her, mercilessly cutting her down to size. A miserable thing. The diseased stalk of a once beautiful bloom. Once soft and lush like the petals of a rose, now withered - there was no flower bloom now.. Just brittle, sharp thorns....

She stepped out of the shower, pulling a clean strip of material from the pile and began to bind her chest once more, careful to keep it clear of the seeping wound over her ribs. She was in the process of pulling a skirt up over her hips when she heard a rather heavy... Thud. That wasn't right.... Ben was asleep.... Wasn't he?

"Ben?" She called, heart twisting as brutally as one of her knives. "Ben!" She tore from the fresher, hair dripping, half-clad and without her mask. She reached out with the Force, feeling a twinge of pain in his signature. His... Presence felt weak. Weaker than it had for months! No! What had happened? She had him relatively stable and now.... Now what?! She wanted to scream her frustration, tearing down the narrow short hallways. Where was he? She couldn't get a solid read on him, she couldn't 'see' him, his presence in the Force was weak... Not strong enough to pinpoint. For the first time in a very long time she wished she had not lost her eyes...

 

~

 

Model spacecrafts made of wood by his own eager hands. The bristled patterning of a red and blue carpet, somehow satisfying under his bare feet. A golden light bathed the morning. It caught on the dice, sitting on his bedside, making it glimmer and glow like a precious jewel. Ben picked it up. It was large in his hands. He felt the solid metal surfaces and was calm. The songs of waking birds was proof enough that it was dawn. Yet hadn't it been night only minutes earlier? He hopped down from a bed far too big for him. The air was thick and hot, but somehow it was a comfort. The sensation of slipping into a deep bath. He took in a breath of delicious steam and recognised the smell: Alderaan stew. Only one person in the galaxy could create that mouth-watering scent from such a dish. His steps were small. He drank in the domestic frames, the pale paint on the walls that caught the light like a canvas catching paint. The doorway above him could be four times his height.

He inched further. She was by the counter. No traces yet of grey within her thick waves of brown hair. Her legs were as tall as trees to the tiny form he was living in again. Voices from the dining room. A sound from the table. A familiar rhythm between the two.

“Well would it kill you to spend a just a little more time with that boy? He adores you, Han! Ever since you took him flying that's all he ever wants to talk about.”

“I thought you said he needed a better influence and now you want me to take him out again?!”

“Han, we wouldn't need a better influence if you became that influence yourself. If you could just...”

“Just what? For kriff's sake, Leia we've been through this before. You’re asking me to change what I can't-”

“-No, I am asking you to grow up and start giving a damn before-!”

She had set her eyes on him. That same look... just before she...

Ben could feel his heart expanding in his chest with every beat. An object about to inflate past its limit. An object about to burst open. The warm sunlight melted into a cold midnight. Ben’s fist clenched around the dice, but it had gone. He had meant to give it back to Han! Where has it disappeared to? His father was there, fast approaching Ben with an open, carefree, almost foolhardy smile. Reckless, but tender too. He reached his arms to Ben, but like a grenade, Ben could feel the crawling of his skin, the anticipation of the flames that would consume them both. The light of the morning had been utterly stripped away to leave the three of them disembodied within an abyss.

“N-no!” Ben tried to exclaim in his younger tongue, but it was too late.

His father brushed Ben’s empty palm and was instantly withering, his skin a mere layer like a glove to peel away before the elastic muscles and fraying sinew and grinding bones devoured themselves into a violent, writhing ash within seconds that couldn't be held captive, that couldn't be changed. Ben had already grown some feet taller.

_ I'm asking you to grow up... _

Ben stared hopelessly at his mother. She was only inches away.

“No!” Ben cried, trying to pull himself from the spot he seemed to be rooted to. “No! Don't touch me! Can't you see what happened?! I did that!” He gestured to the disintegrated remains of Han drifting like watery ripples along a hollow fabric. “I did that! I killed him!”

She paid no attention. She was absent. Quiet. A shell. She put her arms around him. Ben watched her dissolve. He watched her melt away and knew already that the struggle would do nothing. He had grown to his normal height, his mother’s height beneath him before she came apart. Unravelling like a ball of yarn.

Ben shivered. A shock fell through his body.

He awoke. He panted, trying to breathe in some different air than the stench of death, the stifling air of that same room in that same ship. He was washed with sweat.

Ben could hear a havoc somewhere in the distance. Children torn from parents, the hearts of lovers bled dry, friends and brothers scrambling through hungry flames. It could be real. It could be a memory. It could be Vys.

He looked around. Despite his swimming vision, he knew everything was still. Just as hollow as ever, the only sound to accompany him being those incessant, mournful cries. He hobbled this way and that. When he was not too numb to move, too much in dream or caught in a private despair, he could almost be described as bored.

When she was not there to whisper, to craft her wicked arts upon him in a misguided attempt to strengthen him, he had found some strange routine of taking one garment from each of her victims on the ship and tearing it into strips, binding them together in a long chain. Han had taught him knots. Ben tried to convince himself that it wasn't madness. That it was mundane enough to pass the time and keep his mind from any other possible thought. It could be their joined memories, after all. The memories of these young resistance fighters. Ben thought it could also be his new lifeline. A lifeline far less strong than his bond with Rey, yet... perhaps if he kept going, these bindings would save him somehow, as if the souls of the resistance still lingered in the sleeves of those jackets, in the laces of their boots and their belts. It was fast becoming... a kind of art?

He kept it hidden when she came back. He hid it mostly under the bed. Occasionally in an empty drawer.

Poe’s jacket was blotched with scarlet. Ben attacked it feverishly in the sink. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He had little success.

Retreating to bed in silence, he saw the pilot’s furrowed brow when he closed his eyes. The determination in his look, like the embers of a dying fire.

Ben attached him to the chain.

Finn had still kept the jacket Ben had singed with his lightsaber. Ben’s nails shredded it, an almost absent-minded action. He leant back against the wall. Did Finn feel like this? Cornered in that moment? His back against the hardened tree with Kylo Ren’s blazing fury before him, setting a monstrous fire to the biting snow? Ben knew he had been afraid, but his confidence... his nerve? His kindness? Ben had never seen such traits in the First Order. He most likely never would again.

Ben added him to the chain.

The girl Finn lay next to had a pendant. Something close to a crescent shape. Ben could not bring himself to touch it. There were some things that he knew belonged to even their empty corpses. Instead he took her hood. Tearing it away. She kept such a trinket as that pendant for a reason. For someone lost. Most likely lost by Ben’s own hand.

Ben added her to the chain.

It had grown longer. Harder to hide. Vys would find out eventually but why did it matter? He wanted to believe it mattered, but this was only shreds, only pieces, only inanimate things. She could destroy them if she wanted. She could destroy them and it wouldn't make a difference.

She nevertheless seemed... distracted. Trying to find a cure for his infection. Ben was relieved in her absences and when she stayed, he was determined to remain as dead as the others on the ship, for that place was indeed a place of death. She had surrounded him with it, and he was ever more entranced by its apparent yet oddly alluring nature.

He wandered from room to room. Finding... a white dress drawn over a rack in a bedroom. Ben did not have to question who it belonged to. A faint scent of Alderaan stew made him pause.

Dragging his feet and leaning on the walls, he fell upon the mattress, finding the end of the rope he had built. His eyes glazed. He listened to the silence. Vys had returned. Her soft but somehow heavy movements were the only sound. Ben strung together his mother’s dress as the final piece. Raising the line, he stared through a window at the bottom.

A noose.

So this was its purpose the entire time? Ben should have known. This was no line for life. It was a line for death. He remembered Rey sprinting to his aid. She had made a dive between him and a line of death before. Yet now, because he could not prevent it, Rey and death were one. Even his dreams of her, usually the most potent route to their connection, was dulled, veiled. Veiled forever, perhaps. Unless he joined her.

He didn't have to try too hard to convince himself that it wasn't cowardice. That this was meant to be.

_ Where she goes, I follow. _

He had meant those words. He slaughtered villages. He killed his father. He tortured Poe. He injured Finn. He served Snoke’s wishes. Luke nearly owed his death to him. He created Vys and therefore he had slaughtered them all in that ship. The guilt she should feel was his own. He had slaughtered his mother. The freshest wound was that he could not have even prevented Rey’s end... and for all of these things, yes, he would surely have to die. What better way than for the collective souls of the ship to indirectly deliver him to death, just as he had done for them?

The shower had been turned on. The pattering of running water was somehow deafening. Ben found what chair his mother used to sit in. Would the rope be long enough? If he could toss it over a pipe in the ceiling, would it hold? He successfully did so, hesitantly testing his weight upon it, after fastening the bottom of the rope to a bolted area of the pipe on a vertical back wall. It should hold. It had to. There was hardly time to wait. To fear.

What should he fear? Should he fear the noose that was made from his own mother’s clothes? No. He would welcome her. It should be life that he feared. If he was too weak to destroy Vys, if this was the only way to end it... to wound her...

The hanging craft of it turned wistfully in the air. Ben stared through the open window. The doorway in which he had seen his parents.

Could he see Rey there too? Was he truly insane enough to dream a different reality he knew to be false, yet couldn't let go of? He fastened the noose around his neck. If there was the slightest chance that death was this reality, he would take it. He could almost see Rey’s blurred and buried self, reaching out to catch him when he should fall. He was only too eager to surrender to that image. Her outstretched hand, like a flower budding from the numbing frost.

Ben reached in response. He stepped from the chair. It clattered below him, the rope pulled tight and-

Rey. She clarified.

Was it the clarity of death?

His air was cut off, and yet he knew! He knew! It was not death! Her eyes were opened, just as his heavy gaze blackened. His legs danced on an invisible line, just as he was certain that she had found a new, solid ground to stand on. He could feel her new life, the new air in her lungs, just as his was smothered and crushed out of his body.

Where she goes, I will follow. I will follow!

Ben thrashed, jerking on the line. He could resist! He could make it! He could...

His thoughts fast escaped him. His will to survive was almost impossible to regain, but Rey had shown him the impossible already. He reached to where the rope was fastened. The force could not abandon him...

A hazy silhouette dashed forward in the fast-dimming light.

Vysera called his name. He couldn't say a word. His fist clenched, and the line of death finally fell apart. The thud of the floor echoed in his skull where he had hit it already in the crash. His heavy body lay there, struggling to remember how to breathe. Hold on to life... hold on to Rey...

He put out his hand, knowing that it would not be Rey who could take it.

“S-save me...” Ben gasped in a whisper that he could barely hear himself.

Perhaps he had not spoken at all. Perhaps it was simply a final plea he had made in his mind, before collapsing into whatever darkness awaited.


	2. Chapter 2

She could sense danger. The waning of a strong presence in the Force. A sensation she had not felt for many months now. It was impossible! There were no threats aboard this ship... Other than herself, or so she had thought. She did not anticipate that he would finally act on his... His childish threats! He had been equally cruel to her as she had been to him - teasing his desire to take his own life while she was bleeding her own to preserve him. But she had been vigilant! Hadn't she? She'd searched their confined quarters regularly for weapons. She'd confiscated his lightsaber, it usually hung heavily on her belt. She thought she had been thorough in her attempts to keep instruments of destruction out of his hands!

There was no preparing herself for the horror of it. His essence hanging in the air. Desperate. Clinging now to a life he had been clearly ready to abandon. There was no time to question why he'd suddenly experienced a change of heart. She could scarcely comprehend it.

"BEN!!!" She screamed, the pain and the panic in her voice was nearly palpable. "Force, no!" She cried, rushing forward as his body dropped. She rushed to his side, his body struggling to pull breath into his lungs. What had he done?

"What did you do?! WHY?!" She cried, her voice shaking, fragile. She fell heavily to her knees beside him. Her hands searching for her answers where her eyes provided none. She felt the fabric twisted around his neck, the thick knotting of a rope... Her fingers worked hastily to loosen the noose from his neck. She could practically feel the bruising around his throat as she brushed her palm over it. The heat of gathered blood just under the surface of his smooth skin - if she focused, she could almost sense the burst capillaries.

_ ‘S-save me…’ _

Her head tipped towards him, lips parting. In an instant, she felt young and wildly reckless again. Racing down the halls of the Temple at night, a race to the kitchens to steal fresh bread rolls... She had never been able to deny him, then. Why should she have been so surprised that she could not deny him now? She smoothed her hands across his chest, his laboring lungs... She swallowed hard. She didn't... She didn't know if she had the power to... The village outside was drained of resources. Nothing inhabited those huts now but corpses. There was no other choice.

She seized his hand, drawing in a deep breath before dragging it to the wound on her side - the tender skin stung at the touch of his skin on her own. She hissed in pain, pressing down on his hand. Delicate skin broke under his touch, the soft ooze of blood and the early expulsion of infection swelled up around his fingers. She swore, pitching forward, using her free hand to stabilize herself as her chest began to heave with the phantoms of sobs she kept sealed tight behind clenched teeth as she pressed harder. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. She loathed him in that moment, for making her into this... this putrid husk - a font of power that he could simply tap when his mistakes finally had caught up to him and was woefully unprepared to pay the price. But it was hardly comparative to the loathing she had for herself.

She could feel it building, the power that the Darkness harbored. Locked behind gates and doors. Enticing, bountiful... All it needed was to be unlocked. Freed. Pain was one of the most rudimentary of keys but nevertheless, proved to be effective. Time and time again. And in this desperate moment, it was all she could think of to restore his breathing, to try to reverse the damage to his throat... His head.

The proximity, the shared contact. Her pain. The darkness... The weakness of his mental defenses... It was not so hard to fall into his mind. An accident, this time - her focus had been solely  on him that it did not take much to brush aside that veil that separated them. She saw him twisting together the noose that he would use to try to take his life. Links of clothing... Those resistance members... She was about to extract herself from his thoughts...

And then she saw.... Her. Rey. She felt, as he did, that she lived. She released her grip on his hand but strained to keep her mind tethered to his and through his mind... Rey's. She.... A howl of her fury filled the small compartment, this little room. She gripped her little finger and her ring finger. With a savage movement, the harsh sound of bone breaking filled the room. She screamed with the pain of it and yet.... It was enough. She could move across that delicate thread between them. She tore at it, viciously. But she could not sever it. She used her strength and her will - creating a veil... A curtain of sorts to draw across it. Ben would be able to see her, feel her.... But she, with any luck, would not even sense him. It had not served her purposes that the wretch had appeared to die.... And it did not serve her that she had survived after all...

Yet... She slumped on the floor beside Ben. If it meant that he would cling to life.... Perhaps her strength could be utilized elsewhere. They could perhaps turn their attentions to something... More productive.

She reached for him, her stained hand settling on his cheek - her side ached with the expenditure of power, the damage they had done to it...

"Couldn't you have at least tried to stay.... For me?" She whispered, thumb smoothing over his cheekbone. She sighed, head rocking to the side, laying on the floor beside him, pulling his form closer to her own, arm draping over his chest, as if her touch could tie him to this world, this waking life.

He thought he knew pain. He was naive to think that slipping into death would be a mercy. That it would be peace. It was not peace that greeted him through that window, that door, that tightened cord. He could still feel that he possessed a body. A tight, searing ring of flames was coiled around his throat. He struggled and yet his limbs would not respond. He could think, believe and dream and yet he could not wake. Was it too late? Was he lost? Had death drawn him into its stifling grip after all? Would his throbbing soul not be granted freedom from the confines of thick skin and weighted bones?

He might still be hanging, his feet dancing, making a lonely jig on a floor that didn't exist. The air itself seemed to sting and blister his senses. He couldn't will his eyes to open. Frozen in a cage of bones. He tried to draw in a breath. His chest strung with a gnawing ache for his efforts. It took far too long to capture even a single breath. Perhaps he had forgotten how? His crushed lungs were useless. He felt his fingertips twitch as he fought, fought hard to hold on to the dreadful, crawling, drumbeat of his heart in his ears. Rey. Rey was alive. He held onto that drumbeat as if it might be her hand. He would never let go, no matter what alluring figures might try to pry him from her, from hope...

Something collapsed, or, rather, was risen within him. His eyes came open as he struggled harder than ever. He would hold on... The light flooded his fragile awakening. He winced, his numb muscles tightened feebly. He felt the weight of a slender arm drawn across his heart. He flinched. Soft tears budded in his burning eyes. His very first instinct was to pray, to believe that it was Rey next to him. That his desperate plan to find her had somehow succeeded. Yet he knew. He knew who it was, and where he was and what he had asked of the woman lying next to him. He knew his instinct: to hold onto life, was for a reason.

His breathing was stabilizing at long last. She hadn't realized that her own had flagged, matching the labored rhythm of his own. Her arm draped over his chest rose and fell with it. The sensation smoothed over her, she curled into his side, forehead against his shoulder. It was, for a brief moment.... Peaceful. So comfortable, curved to the line of his warm body that she had nearly dozed off. For a precious, stolen moment. One that didn't belong to her but she greedily reveled in it nevertheless. She didn't have to look inside his mind to know where it was. Where he would be thinking of her. That... Perfect beam of glowing light... Rey had been radiant. An essence that was incandescent. Intoxicating. Poisonous. She'd infected him... Tainted him with that innocent warmth. A purity she was not sure that she herself had ever possessed.

He began to stir, she pushed herself up onto her elbow. Easier said than done. Her body ached. She felt weak. Frail. She could feel him returning - his presence was strengthening. It called to her. Could she... Reach out and just... Take a little of it? Just a small sliver - enough so she could stand? She fought to keep her features arranged in a placid manner. Oh Force... She wanted to taste him, his power... Just enough to sustain her... She needed him. In more ways than he could possibly begin to comprehend. How could she judge him for his creeping, withering need for that girl when she had that same desperate weakness for him?

His stirring seemed to catch her attention as she lay next to him. She shifted. He could almost envy how easy it seemed for her to move, as elegantly as a serpent, as flowingly as when he saw her first in Vorkenna. Yet, there were injuries, stutters that might not have registered for an outside eye, but Ben knew of them, and he could see it. She'd bled... Broken for him. Why? Why did she persist?

Because of her desire? Because he had... Asked her? He blinked, sending the tears back into his eyes before they might fall. He could finally see them: her real eyes. Sure enough, they were absent. Two, hollow holes, rimmed with long-dried blood watched him. Her chest and breasts were bare. Ben was not afraid of her. He knew that anyone rational might be alarmed, but it was somehow no longer a struggle for him not to show fear or weakness. He only felt... An odd loss, a familiar guilt, a deep wound of pity. The loss of the friend he knew. Her frame being fractured, but preserved. He thought of their memories. He thought of her laughter. Would she ever laugh with genuine, innocent joy ever again?

He was forgetting himself. He scolded himself, despised himself. His foolish pity. She'd killed his family. Yet was she the only family he might have left? No! Could he not see himself submitting to what she wanted so soon?! He blocked up those thoughts, strangled them as he had been, before they could come into fruition. There was only one thing he would at least grant her for saving him. He had no doubts, after all, that he would be dead and gone were it not for her aid.

His lips parted, ready to speak but no sound surfaced. His limbs felt buried. Still bound from the moment he knew what she had done. From the moment his mother didn't respond. Ben tried harder to speak. His breaths were shallow.

It took her a moment to realize he was looking at her. Her. Vysera Ren. She turned her head away, her wet hair falling forward as a tangled curtain. She hadn't... Intended for him to... See her like this. Her lips were curling into a frown of disgust. An expression of revulsion she had no doubt would be on his face. She hadn't the time to get fully dressed, racing from the fresher like... Like a wild heathen. She hadn't thought of the repercussions - her only thought had been to find him...

Her... She wanted to lift her hands to her face, to hide the two cavernous sockets set into her fine bone structure. Like a grand ring missing it's precious stones. It wasn't fair! He would never be able to unsee this. How he would see only ruin when he looked upon her. The mess, the disaster that she saw... That she could feel. Pale flesh, marked with scars. Not simply the ones they had earned in battle together. Not the marks of her self inflicted pain - desperate acts to anchor her mind to her body when insanity had come calling her name... The same scars she'd made so she would remember the sound of her own voice, following the screams of a scared young woman back to where she huddled in the cockpit of a lone ship in the vast abyss of open space. She straightened, obscuring the view of her back - the fine lettering of an ancient alphabet carved into flesh that had once been smooth and soft.

"Vy..."

A thousand needles pricked at his throat. Could he not even manage a single syllable? A single name? His voice was so sore a whisper that felt like he had swallowed shards of broken glass. Was this how utterly powerless he had become? His fingers curled into a softly trembling fist.

"V-Vys." He managed. 

She shook her head gently, cradling her broken fingers. She felt... Pathetic. It shouldn't matter what she looked like. What he thought of her didn't matter - she would have her way! Her attempts to console herself, to kindle the fires of rage failed. He shouldn't speak her name...

He was certain she appreciated her name pronounced in his broken voice. He tried to swallow and failed, the fiery pain even angrier than before. He sighed in frustration. Even the sigh didn't manifest properly. How long would it last? Ben pushed through the barrier, even if it choked him.

His voice was a rasping spectre of what it should have been. A wound in her chest - a reminder of how close she had come to losing him. No... She couldn't let him go. Force knew she'd tried. She'd tried to purge herself of weakness. She'd tried to kill that young girl that'd fallen for him... From the first time she saw him, Luke's hand on his shoulder as he guided that young boy to the half halo of his students. His dark hair, those expressive eyes... Eyes she could no longer see but for stolen glimpses of them in the memories of those whose minds she assaulted.

His sigh. Frustration? Anger? Would he tell her that she had made a mistake? That she had pushed too far? Hadn't she? She tried to make him strong. She tried to pry that treacherous weakness from him - his need for the others by taking them away... And it had driven him to... She should have been more vigilant. Taken him with her! No! No... she.... She didn't want him to see what she did in the darkness, it was bad enough that they screamed as they died... Always screaming.... She'd sensed that he was too delicate to witness things. But leaving him behind had allowed him the moments of solitude to... Create that ghastly.... Wretched noose.

"Th-thank you." He gasped.

A rasped sentiment. Did it pain him to speak it? Did it taste like ash and vinegar on his tongue? She could only imagine how sick it must make him feel. To speak words of gratitude to her. She'd felt his pain - she knew how deeply she'd cut him when she'd killed those people... His mother... 

Nevertheless, the pained words drew her in, compelling her to turn her face back toward him. Her eyes, or rather the disused ducts burned. Her lower lip trembled as she struggled to keep herself composed. Absently, she reached up to wipe something away from her cheek. She could not see the smudge of crimson left on her cheek, the stain of it along the curve of her finger. The act of crying, feeling tears was but a faded memory for her, it did not occur to her that she even still could.

He found her hand. He should not show this... this vile evil affection. He nevertheless tried to imagine how it felt to hold her hand before this. Before all of it. A tear escaped his eye before he could hide it away. She froze, head tilting down as she studied the sensation. His hand, taking her own.

"Thank you." He repeated.

The words blistered him. His affection and gratitude boiled with inevitable, accompanying hatred and dismay. His helplessness was what pained him most of all. To think: that he was once one of the most accomplished, most feared leaders of the Galaxy, now compared to this useless form, this prisoner, this dead body clinging onto life. It wasn't the power he cared for. It was not the luxury he missed. It was simply... His strength. His life. It felt like such a strength had vanished. Vanished for so long a time. Would he ever get it back?

He gazed up at Vys blankly. Why was he unable to act on any of his feelings at all? He should be attempting to kill her with whatever traces of breath he had left, but he knew already it would make no difference. His power belonged to her. Whatever action he would take was not an action at all, and so long as Rey remained, then so would he. What would come next in this prison? How could he know, when he controlled nothing. Nothing except for his own death and when it might come.

It was not for her. He hadn't wanted to preserve his life in order to be here with her. He had been desperate... Frightened. Rey's visage had appeared and he couldn't resist her. She could call him to her from anywhere, it seemed. While her own attempts to call to him had never succeeded... The cursed rot of jealousy in her splintered soul was spreading. Seeping into every thought, weaving itself tightly around her diseased heart. The misery of it stole her breath. For a long moment, she considered placing his hands around her own throat... Considered begging him to take it away... To set her free. To give her peace.

The moment passed, however. She pulled her hand free of his, struggling to get to her feet. She swayed slightly, hand moving to brace herself against the wall - something made of fabric touched her bare arm as it moved past it. She could feel it... Death clung to that material. Then, she realized what it was... The other half of... She seized it, pulling it free with a savage pull, the motion breaking the fragile clotting on the wound on her side. It spilled a trickle of blood, catching in grooves along the panes of her flesh - inking in the runes - exposing a mass of finely written text carved into her skin.

She was seething with rage, igniting the twist of fabric with a small spark of electricity. It cost her. The payment being demanded of her body was becoming steeper. She'd had to use quite a lot of it to return from beyond the Outer Rim territories... She didn't flinch from the flames that licked at her hand as she stood, holding the burning remains of his noose. She'd have to return to her roots... Physicality. Relying too heavily on the Force would take her before she was ready to leave.

"Do something like this again..." She rasped, her own voice quivering. As much anger as there was pain and fear. "And I will finish what you started!"

She let the ashes drop to the floor as she staggered away from the wall.

"She will be alone on this world and I will do everything to preserve her." She'd keep her from the waiting hands of death - forever keeping them apart. Locked in two separate realms - realms that she believed she walked a foot either side of that fine line between the two.

"I will ensure she seeks to join you each and every day. I'll make her crave death... I will author such a need to end it all deep in her very soul." She growled, "And I will deny her every time." She moved to step past him, wishing she felt the fire of her words. Did he? Did it boil his blood? Did he understand?


	3. Chapter 3

Ben wasn't sure that he had ever seen her so weak. She had to stagger to the wall, leaning on the surface in her fatigue. He should have known she would discover it. He watched, his heart in his mouth as she took hold of his cord, yanking it away so aggressively that he could see the blood in her wound split apart again, dribbling down the deathly language in her skin. Ben shouldn't care about the noose. The cord... his line, it was just scraps and torn garments yet...

A mere flick of her wrist and his fabric erupted into scorching flames. Swarming protests threatened to spill from his lips, but his hoarse voice allowed only for one.

"No!" Ben wheezed, almost unable to hear his own exclamation.

He came to his hands and knees to scramble towards her, despite knowing he would be too late. He watched the fire lick their memories, - turning their service to him beyond death, the symbol of his own remaining shred of power, to nothing but blackened ash. He sank back into the floor. The fire lapped at Vysera’s own skin, yet she didn't flinch, not even for a second. Ben stared up at her, his lip trembling while his jaw clenched so hard that his teeth began to ache.

_ ‘Do something like this again... And I will finish what you started!’ _

If she could only see the strength and loathing present in his eyes. Perhaps she could feel it. He was no longer naive enough to think that she needed eyes to see. She would not take his one and only right, his one escape from her, away.

_ ‘She will be alone on this world and I will do everything to preserve her.’ _

Rey...

The very mention of her both wounded and powered him in equal measure. She was living, unveiled and very real, but what had become of her? He had no doubt of who could have brought her so close to death. He knew as soon as he felt the splitting pain of the shot she suffered. He was certain that it had been some kind of shot. He knew what it felt like, to have a hole blown through him, but for Hux to go so far as to fracture her, perhaps forever, to almost kill her... it consumed his insides, his very perception of her fate since that time, had been tainted with rage as much as misery. Leaving her alone, still alive, with him?! Ben wasn't aware that his shallow gasps had become faster, turning into heavy, shaking breaths. How long could this go on? He thought he had failed to save her, but he had wrongly cursed the Force for his failure when she still lived! She still lived! Fresh tears continued to brew in his eyes as his throat seared.

_ ‘I will ensure she seeks to join you each and every day. I'll make her crave death... I will author such a need to end it all deep in her very soul. And I will deny her every time.’ _

Ben shook his head softly, as if the motion would cast away her words. He stared at nothing, lowering his face, hiding from her, under the curtain of his hair.

There was pain in Vysera’s voice. Grief so heavy that it was near-palpable, but he could not pity her. He could not believe that she grieved for his life. She could not grieve for him. No; she grieved for herself losing him. She grieved for her loss, not his. He had to believe it. That her grief was selfish when it would have been better for him to die if it meant he would meet Rey there. Vys could not bear to have lose any of him to anything except herself. How it made him MAD! To know that he was not hers to keep! That he could never, would never be her- her PET!

The madness, the rage, only grew, - manifesting in the air around him, when she threatened Rey with torments. As if she had not suffered the pain worth a hundred combined lifetimes already! NO MORE! Vysera's voice trembled. It was something that ignited a dark hunger he had tried to bury: a hunger for any signs of her weakness. Her running blood. Her burned flesh. Ben could only watch her surface pains... And think them good and just and... fair. He should not have thanked her. He should not have given her his hand. Kindness, a longing for some redemption that had been mawed into pieces had turned him... Turned him weak. Without Rey, he would not have purpose, but with her? He would find it again. Yet his hopes were dismantled beyond repair. Her dark influence feasted on his very core with every passing minute. The room grew colder just with her presence within it, but burned where Ben was present. Ben was tempted. Tempted to find the dim yet alluring route of his true power that Snoke had attempted to nourish...

No! Couldn't he see?! This was what Vys wanted! He was forgetting himself. Who had taught him kindness? His parents and Rey! And for whom was he fighting if not them? He could not turn all over again, he could not submit, he would not be so weak, or he would lose sight of what he fought for altogether. He could not fall to her abyss, but must rise above- if only he believed himself capable!

He didn't care. Even in anger and grief, Vys had threatened her. Threatened the one who he truly belonged to, who she had taken him from, keeping him here, a caged bird!

He crawled further forward, fingertips meeting the ashes of the burned souvenirs of the lives of the Resistance and his line of escape. It had been long enough for his mourning of his mother and the resistance to have been dulled almost by the fresher wound of Rey's apparent end. Now he knew she wasn't gone...

He drew his sleeve over the sting of his eyes until they were dry. Giving a final silent prayer and apology to the heap of dust before him, he turned, finding his feet. He did not have much time to think... To consider the consequences. He did not have time to consider how even as she was: the weakest he had ever seen her, she would still remain five times more powerful than him. He did not have time to think of how frightening it was that his seething fury could so swiftly surface and manipulate his movements as if his body was not even his to control.

He fumed, his every muscle shaking, whether with adrenaline, pure and devastating anger or just exhaustion, he wasn't sure. He already knew that it was a mistake. If she had to kill him, to finish what he started... No. He wouldn't leave this place, not until Rey left first. Whatever sick plan Vys might have to keep her living and longing for death... Ben shook his head again. He couldn't think of Vysera’s words any longer. He found his voice, though it continued to blister him with agony whenever he used it.

"I... Was never yours." Ben rasped. "I will never be... yours."

He paused, taking in what breaths he could manage.

"I'm hers." He growled, pushing himself through the pricking sensation, pushing himself to be heard. He would be heard. "If we are preserved, I will always... Always be hers."

He planted his feet on the ground. She might kill him for this. He would take that risk. He might be weak, but so was she. He would never quite have a chance like this one. She could read his thoughts easily, if she wanted. He wouldn't have time... He had to try.

In one sweep, he launched his arms before him, throwing a powerful wind in her direction. The nearby chairs fell. A bedside table was swept into his current. Ben knew he wasn't thinking it through. He knew she would win... He would rather die fighting than live as her prisoner.

He changed the direction of that push in the force, he swept her form into one wall, throwing her body, hard into that steel surface, then straight down with an audible smack, on the floor.

Would Vys kill him? Would she really? His doubts flooded his senses. No… what if he was separated from Rey? In death?!

His efforts grew more desperate. He tried throwing object upon object on top of her… trying to bury her! He had to try and escape-

He was running, stumbling back. Something! Anything! Were there no more escape pods?! Could he commandeer this?!

Already she was rising…

NO! 

He tried to freeze her, tried to lock her in place while he searched, his hand trembling.

~

_ ‘No!’ _

Though spoken a small voice, it was a large protest for his current state. It must have taken him a great deal of effort to be heard, but she could not yield. No matter the twisting ache in her chest. She could hear him shuffling, the sound of fabric and skin on the floor. His hands and knees, then? Once upon a time, it was not a posture she would have ever wanted him to be in. She'd hated to even see him kneeling when they had been little more than Snoke's property. When she had returned to him on Vorkenna... She had not wanted to stand above him. She had wanted to be by his side as she once had been before. It was the only place she had ever belonged.

Now, perhaps it was her fear of losing him... losing her place in this galaxy. And her anger that he could even ponder doing this to her! To himself! Nevertheless it seemed to suit her wishes now. It seemed she would have to stand above him, if he could not see the merit in rising. She had never wanted to see him so low. She had always wanted to see him rise. To stand above those who had wronged him. There were so few remaining. One, perhaps, and those whose hearts were like his - like that red haired man who had eyed Ben's little prize with the gaze of a man dying of thirst seeing a well in the desert. Ben had waited too long. Killing his father before he killed Snoke - she had not been here to help... And now...

Now he was a different man. He no longer greedily supped on the comfort she had once been able to provide him. Having tasted another love, he was cruelly able to brush hers aside as if it meant nothing to him. As if she was nothing... He was now a man who loathed her. She could feel it, seeping from him just as surely as the blood from her wound. He waited too long to release her from exile. He had damned her, forced her into a corner where she could be only his jailer, his nightmare... His personal hex. Just as he now played the part of her very own curse. Her purpose. Her reason... Without him... She was frightened of what it could mean to lose him. To be unbound.

It was not a fate she could accept. She had known him as a boy. She had walked beside him, shared in his journey. His pain, his loss, his triumphs and defeats. Could he not see? She was his only link to the past. She could guide him to his future because she knew his path, she would lead him back to it - she would help him to realize his destiny, to embrace his truest self. He may have forgotten who he was, but she had not. She loved him. More than anything else. More than herself...

She could feel the hell fire rising in him. The more she threatened Rey... The more she stoked the flames. Within herself, she could feel the bile of jealousy rising thick and sour in her throat. If only he felt that devotion to her! If only he needed her as much as she... No! NO! And here it was, the brutal back-swing of the Reaper's scythe. The other side of the coin. A fanatical hatred. A desire to rip out the chains bolted into her heart that bound her to him. Once freed, what could she do? What  _ wouldn't  _ she do? Her vision would be limitless and none could stop her. Not Ben... Not the machine of the First Order... And that childlike Rey... She would bite the head off that dove with her very own teeth. Life had given her fangs and talons, sharpened her... Hardened her. She was a weapon and Rey.... Rey was a victim. It was the only fate she possessed. To be used and controlled. If not by the false-Emperor... Then Ben's very nature, his insidious creeping darkness would touch that well of light and turn it dark.

She could feel it now. The gloomy clouds being drawn across the sky, blotting out the sun. There was a tension in the air. A heat. Her head tilted. She could feel the current of the Force shifting around him, she could hear it... The fabric of his clothing rustling as he moved to stand. Yes.... Rise.... Rise!

Oh, it was hurting him... Bitter conflict. The pain of his own body. Good! Let him suffer the results of his own stupidity! His foolishness! Let him bear the weight of the consequences of his actions! Pain was as merciless and effective a teacher as failure ever was!

_ ‘I... Was never yours. I will never be... yours.’ _

Her expression contorted into a mask of brilliant rage. Teeth bared as she shook her head. So stubborn! So selfish! So foolish! All this pain, all this effort to spew his venom! Lies! All of it lies! She would show him... She would break him! She had wanted to share his life... But no... No... For this... This wretched insolence, she knew there could only be one possible response: she would OWN him! She growled low in her throat, a primitive and animalistic sound - a warning. A warning he did not heed.

_ ‘I'm hers. If we are preserved, I will always... Always be hers.’ _

She screamed at him, half hunched, fingers curled into fists as if she meant to drown him out! NO! She would destroy Rey! She would obliterate her! She would consume her - take that precious soul and shatter it so completely that nothing would remain! In this life or any other! She took a staggering step forward, murderous intent on her features. There were no eyes to glower at him. Just two dark caverns - the maw of the abyss and ruination.

"You FOOL!" She spat, her voice cracking, - there was no grief or sorrow, now.

She heard the shift of his boot against the floor - a stance she could hear and feel just as well as she had once been able to see it. He was preparing to attack her! The audacity!!! She threw up her arms but it was nothing in the face of the assault, thrown back into the wall with an audible cracking sound. A rib? Her skull? Did it matter? She'd endured far worse.... She struggled against the power of his attack but it held her pinned against the wall until...

She was spun through the air, another split second before she was flattened again! Struck down to the floor! She roared, straining to find her feet as she felt the attack of those thrown objects, an infantile assault! She stopped those objects in mid air and threw each of his distractions away with a single swipe, ready again, she searched his presence…

Running away! As if he might run from his destiny! COWARD! 

She sensed it: uncertainty. Rey was just as surely a noose around his throat as the twisted remains of cloth had been. She was the anchor dragging him below the surface into the depths of a sea he had no hope of navigating. She struggled against him… she took a step towards him as his hold on her lessened. Another step. He should not have even thought of stopping himself...

"You lack conviction!" She hissed, stalking closer to him. One hand moving to the wound over her ribs, staining her palm red. She slid it down her left arm. The thick mass of scars that littered her flesh had appeared random at first. Now that she smoothed blood into the valleys and troughs - they have become deliberate strokes of a foreign language. She shook her head.

"You are weak, Ben Solo! Pathetic! You THINK you want her..." She chuckled, toxic notes of sadistic mirth. "But you hesitate!" She paced back and forth like a hungry beast cornering its prey, in spite of the fact that his hold kept her at arm's length. "Or is it that you expect her to fight her way to you?" Her hands moved to the small of her back... But of course... Her daggers were not on her.... She shook her head. So be it.

Slowly, she turned her head and lifted her arm. His power was not strong enough to stop these movements… though she still felt as if she were wading in oil. She parted her lips, her eye teeth finding the peak of scar tissue, she bit down, hard enough to split the flesh, to feel the blood welling up between her teeth. The girl could never find her way back to him, She wasn't strong enough. Her slim shoulders could never bear the weight of what it would take... It would break her. And if somehow she did, she would resemble nothing of that sweet thing he craved.

She dug her sharp fingernails into the wound she'd made.

"Don't you see? Don't you see why I had to do it?" She gasped, ripping, pulling at her skin, splitting the runes along her arm. "All of it?" She cried out in pain as she drug her fingernails down to her wrist. She shuddered, blood dripping to the floor.

His hold on her through the force had lessened. Shock? Surprise?

"Because you weren't strong enough then... And you aren't now!" Something was rising from the wound - dark and nebulous. Smoke? Ash? She howled as her body seemed to split and fracture. The essence rose from the puddle, the darkness gathering in a shape. A hand... 

She raised her arm and the hand shot forward - a shapeless mass as it distorted in the traces of Ben’s presence in the force, but once it crossed to the other side of the room...

She could feel him, every particle, every single piece. The Force wrapped around him, black fingers twisting around his form. His essence... His heartbeat. His soul. She could feel it all through that ebon hued hand. She drew it out, siphoning from him that irresistible vitality. That spitfire... His passion. She fed on it all, greedily. She straightened, her flesh gaining a more healthy color, her skin more radiant than it had been sallow. The ridges between her bones filled - less gaunt. Less a walking corpse and more a living, breathing woman with flesh that was warm, instead of touched by the grave's hand. She took easy strides towards him, as if his power was nothing, something to be brushed aside. She stood before him, lifting her uninjured arm to the side of his face - sweet and caressing, pushing it into his hair, brushing back the curtain of obscurement.

She offered him a small smile. It was all too tempting to drain him entirely, to leave him as nothing but a withered husk. She would always carry a piece of him within herself, now... How seductive a pull to take every piece of him...

"Stop resisting me, Ben..." She made a savage movement with her hand, the one wrapped around him mirrored it. "And all this pain.... All this torment and suffering... Ben?" She tightened her grip in his hair, jerking sharply so that he would have to look at her face as she spoke to him. 

"Ben, I can show you things.... Things she will never know. I can make you feel all the things she never could! I can replace all this agony with paradise. The galaxy can be ours! Yours... Mine..." She drew near, her lips a hairsbreadth from his own, she drew in each of his labored, exhaled breaths into her lungs. She shivered with exquisite pleasure. To be so close... Her chest rose and fell with her deep breaths. Oh, how she longed to feel his touch upon her...

But he wasn't ready for such pleasures. He had not earned them. Nor the supremacy she offered him, if he joined her at her side. Not yet. She tore her hand free, letting him collapse to the floor, - the darkness retracting back to her arm, the wound sealing, the runes restored, as she stepped past him.

"My patience IS finite, Ben." She trailed a fingertip down the side of the door frame.

With a small shrug and the slink of her hips, she slipped out into the hallway, dismissing him entirely as a threat as she made her way back to the fresher compartment to finish getting dressed.

~

Her humanity, her skin had shred, revealing that demon, that monster that had taken over the limbs, any traces of his sister... his friend. She screamed, her shrill, ear-splitting cry attempting to stifle his words that were hardly heard in the first place.

_ ‘You FOOL!’ _

Ben didn't let the sting of her voice, her piercing exclamations, move him. He refused to yield to the signs of what would come.

It was not her fury that made him hesitate. It would be his own doubts, his love for Rey. Still, when he raised his glance from his efforts, his outstretched hands, his spread fingers, to see Vysera's body planted against the wall, something in his mind began to lift. He could do this. His heart began to speed. Even having been near to death, he had more strength, more power than he knew. He could take her, he could defeat her, he COULD DO THIS!

His scattering thoughts battled for his focus. His hope, his fear... What would he do? He could feel her struggle. He couldn't hold her... Not for long. He tried to run, but he knew he wouldn't be able to outrun her, not with the swollen, infected wound on his knee. He was so sure that he could not win that as soon as he believed it, it tasted sour, like a lie. Rey would forever be alone... Vysera’s threat surfaced, ringing on and on, like a stabbing, ceaseless alarm.

His aching arms lowered. She took a step forward. No... NO! He could do this! He had to! He drove on, even as he watched her pull another step closer, cutting through his power, like a blade through flesh. How…? How was she able to…? Ben grew nauseous. He blinked, pressing further, tightening the force around her, though his legs had started to tremble.

_ ‘You lack conviction!’ _

She moved closer and with more ease with every step. Ben's heart hammered. He backed away, his hands still shielding him, but his hold was already growing weaker. He recognised her dark tone. Was it really her? Or was… was Snoke speaking to him from beyond death?

He watched with wide eyes as she inked the scars of her arm with her thick, scarlet blood. What...? What did she intend to-?

_ ‘You are weak, Ben Solo! Pathetic! You THINK you want her…’ _

Her laugh was vile. Claws scraping through the screech of metal. She was not his friend. He could not save her...

_ ‘But you hesitate!’ _

Ben pushed harder, never drawing away his eyes as she began to pace before him. It was as if his determination might convince her of the truth: it was for Rey's sake that he hesitated, and not because his love wavered, even for a second. He loved Rey. He LOVED HER!

He begged the Force for Vys to keep her distance. He could still make it... He brushed away her biting insults, though they mingled with his true thoughts. He already knew he was weaker than before. He had exchanged his power for something unlimited, something precious. A joy he thought he would never feel, a home he believed he would never have. A love he never thought he would deserve.

_ ‘Or is it that you expect her to fight her way to you?’ _

Ben panted, his raven hair whipping about his face from his excursions in the force. Each mention of Rey on her devilish tongue scorched him. He growled, his throat still burned...

It was then that she began to split herself apart. Ben began to stare as she became engaged in some action which was quite beyond him, at first. She began to... Hurt herself. He was speechless, almost bewitched, beguiled by her progress as she savagely tore open her own wound on her arm. His jaw dropped, a sickness building in his stomach. Why couldn't he tear away his eyes?! Why couldn't he run or fight anymore?!

_ ‘Don't you see? Don't you see why I had to do it?’ _

She was tearing up shreds of her own flesh. Ben blanky watched, though horror made hairs rise on the back of his neck. Why could he only stare?! Why did it seem as if she could feel no pain at all? What had she learned?! What had she DONE?!

_ ‘All of it?’ _

His theory was proven wrong when she cried out, her blood splattering on the floor. Ben thought he could taste bile. He swallowed, finally able to move again. He tripped backward, his raised hands quivering. He could not anticipate what she would do... He only knew that he had pushed her too far.

_ ‘Because you weren't strong enough then... And you aren't now!’ _

From the broken skin, the glittering blood, Ben saw that impossible smoke, that black, churning fire or ash, form itself into a hand. It scattered nearer. He knew already, unlike a blaster shot, he couldn't stop it, - that her craft, her knowledge, of living darkness in the galaxy was unlike anything he had ever known. Not even Snoke would do... Whatever this was. Ben nevertheless expelled what he could, a final, desperate explosion of power, before he was taken into the grasp of living shadow.

He was lifted into the air, still hanging... On an entirely different noose this time. That was when he felt the pull, the draining sensation. He kicked and writhed in that giant fist, but he hit nothing, he might as well attack the air, as those shifting, smouldering fingers tightened, his limbs already tiring, he was suffocated and smothered. He held onto anger, onto light, onto Rey... Nails were thrust into his heart, a punishment for hope, for resisting.

Ben wanted to roar, to battle further, but his screams were choked with the pricks of needles, the bruising could be felt as if that noose, or her icy hands from when she had throttled him, remained. Something central... Something living, was torn away from his physical form, detaching ruthlessly, utterly from his skin, his mind, his core.

He could see her own skin begin to flourish. A mockery, a dream of who she once was, excepting the abyss of her lost eyes, burning into his as he cried tears without a sound. He caught a glimpse of his own skin through the shifting, dark mass. Further paled, almost grey, bones rising from a flesh that had already thinned. He gasped but no air was pulled into his unresponsive lungs.

He blinked, and she was close, seemingly in the space of a second. Her hand came to his hair, delicately, teasingly pulling it from his features. He had never been so enraged... Even weakened, his blood was a lava in his veins. She smiled... SMILED! He threw his face from her, he would not meet her gaping holes for eyes.

_ ‘Stop resisting me, Ben…’ _

He felt the hand around him clench. He couldn't... Breathe... The strength was squeezed from him, like the coiling body of a giant snake. His skin crawled, his ribs crushing... He grit his teeth, casting his eyes to the floor, attempting not to reveal his agony to her.

_ ‘And all this pain.... All this torment and suffering... Ben?’ _

He felt her fingers in his hair grow tight. He winced, his neck straining as she pulled, forcing him to look at her. The need to resist was already growing faint. He would beg Rey for forgiveness. His chance... His chance was gone.

_ ‘Ben, I can show you things.... Things she will never know. I can make you feel all the things she never could! I can replace all this agony with paradise. The galaxy can be ours... Yours... Mine…’ _

Her voice was the only thing for him to occupy himself with, aside from his pain and humiliation. Hope... conflict... it was all smothered by despair. He realised she had let him breathe again. He pulled in breath after breath that he could manage. He saw her lips near his. His eyes fluttered. The promise of tenderness amoungst this bitterness, this torture. It was a thing that was hard to ignore... NO! No! What was she DOING to him?! He was shamefully terrified. No! He couldn't, he wouldn't let her! He was reminded, peculiarly, of his reaching to Rey in that scarlet throne room. Promising to rule that galaxy with her. What a fool! It was never the galaxy he wanted. It was only her love. He couldn't think this way! What Vys posessed... It... It wasn't love!

Ben collapsed to the floor, the hand ripped from his body. He couldn't move. Why? It was as if he were close to death again. Was he?! What did she do?! A million questions chased through his thoughts but he couldn't begin to answer a single one. Neither his brain nor his body obeyed him.

The worst of it was that he didn't want to even try. His love, his anger, his passion had... Vanished. He pulled his knees to his chest. He couldn't even weep. He was empty. So empty. Empty and cold. He shivered.

_ ‘My patience IS finite, Ben.’ _

He drew up his heavy eyes to numbly observe her, while he shook, while he trembled on the floor, as if he had only just recovered from the snow where he had crashed. She could almost be beautiful. There was no sign of a dark abomination having spun out from her wound. She casually slipped away, a predator having taken her fill of his carcass.

Ben lay there. He could not sleep. He could not die. He wished for either, for anything, anything other than this.


	4. Chapter 4

Vysera Ren stood before the mirror in the 'fresher compartment. She could not see her reflection but seemed forever haunted by the compulsion to linger there, listlessly. For practical reasons, she assured herself - because counters were usually always placed before mirrors. She picked up the twists of cloth, her fingers sliding along the fabric, feeling the lines of stitching, the seams. She slipped the shirt on over her head. Pushing her long limbs through the sleeves, pulling the shirt down over the curve of her chest, settling it along her narrow waist, the split that began at the sweep of her hips and ended at narrow points just brushing her knees. She could feel the soft weight against the skirt she'd had the sense to pull on before searching for Ben.

She couldn't articulate just how... Very well she felt. His essence was potent as she had long suspected it would be. Enough to restore her somewhat to her former glory. If it could be called such a thing... It was all that she had imagined it to be and more. She felt as though she'd finally had a night's worth of good, decent sleep. As if she'd had enough to eat and the nutrients could truly sustain her... She lifted her hands to her thick hair, twisting and braiding - movements long engraved into her muscular memory.

The vitality of non Force users was only a light snack. A sweet nothing. Just enough to tide her over... Until she'd taken a piece of his life, she hadn't realized how absolutely ravenously starved she had been! She braced herself against the counter, breathing heavily. The gluttonous greed, begging her to return to that room - to taste and taste again, to take and take! She shook her head. N-no! No... She wouldn't. To take it all... Would be a waste. There would never be another quite like him, she told herself, hands moving to her chest. So raw, so powerful... Even if he denied his connection to such things...

She would open that connection for him. They would find Rey - she would teach him how to do as she had done but far gentler... Far more pleasurably than she had learned... Then they would drain her together. If he never wanted to be parted from her, what better way than to carry a piece of her with him forever? And she...? She would possess a part of her, too. A luring charm she was certain he could not resist. It made her heart swell, her lips curving into a wide grin as she took the final piece from the counter, a blindfold that she smoothed into place, tying the well practiced knot before threading the ends into her braid.

It would be easier said than done... First... She had to open his eyes, his mind to the mere possibility. He had to be aware of what potential this galaxy held for them! She had to entice him, show him... Seduce him not only to the darkest side of the Force but to her. He had to be willing to let go of Rey... Something he was so ardently certain he would never do... But he didn't know what Vys knew... Once he did... How could he refuse? Her fingers trailed the flesh of her neck, lips parting as she drew in a lingering breath.... Oh, but she would show him... She would educate him.

She slipped from the fresher room, she paused by the door. Had he moved? She leaned on the door frame, she could hear his pulse throbbing in her ears, taste him on her lips, feel him in her veins... His essence, at least. There would be time... She pondered offering him a word or two... Ah, but she had felt his anger as she held him close, draining this precious vitality from him... Even in the hand of death. She decided against speaking, slipping away to the cockpit. Give him time.... She told herself. He would heal. She'd make certain of that.

She settled herself in the pilot's seat. She felt radiant. Glorious as any star in the vast, dark sky. The blood in her veins sang with power, with strength that she had long since forgotten. She felt... Jubilant. Her fingers reached for the datapad. The late General Organa's datapad, in fact. This craft had a number of treasures that she'd been able to harvest. Along with a pair of golden plated dice, she now possessed all the intel that the resistance had gathered. It wasn't nearly so much as she had hoped, but.... With their limited means of resources, she supposed that it would have to be enough.

Hours and hours had passed. The day had ended and it was long into the next afternoon according to the timing mechanisms that she finally withdrew the coordinates out of the wall of text and entered them into the nav system. She hadn't felt the slightest need for sleep. Didn't need to find herself falling into oblivion. Oh, if only she could keep this feeling, forever! She made her way to the mess room, preparing food for him. He would need to eat. She? She stirred the boiling water into the ration powder, watching it bubble and heat into a soupy mixture. She didn't require this sustenance. Not at the present...

It didn't take her long to find him.

"Ben... I've brought you something to eat." She settled next to him, placing the tray on the floor, drawing her feet up into a cross legged position. She tried not fidget, her excitement mounting with each kilometer that they traveled. She could scarcely contain her glee but for him... His fragile state... She would try. Try, until he could share in her ecstatic delight.

~

He lay curled in a ball for what felt like hours. A beetle, unable to find it's legs. The floor was so cold. He felt exposed. Naked. Drawn open. He hugged himself for warmth. It was no use. It was as if his skin and organs had fallen away, leaving him as a mere cage of bones. He closed his eyes. It only made it worse. If he closed his eyes, he was back in her grasp of shadow. As if she'd never let him go. She still hadn't.

He didn't move. Not once. He could hear her delicate steps. Grace regained from what was stolen. He was robbed. He searched, but found nothing that moved his hollow heart. No hope. The thought of Rey brought tears to his eyes. So he could feel pain? Then why was it that he felt he had no life, no breath, no reason to continue?

A horrifying thought had occurred to him: perhaps he would never feel his love... his passion properly again. The same raw yet tender love, that had defined so much of what he believed himself to be, underneath the exterior. Underneath the shade of Kylo Ren was a boy, and Vys had taken him. Almost as if she had feasted on the invaluable, tender substance of his young life. It grew harder to remember... Was he once innocent? Had he always been a death to anything and anyone he touched?

His eyes came to rest on some motionless shapes of greyed flesh. Stashed in the corner like meat after hunting. Ben's look didn't linger. If he kept watching, might lose... What? What else was there to be truly lost?

His love? Rey could be...

His grotesque imagination cast her upon that gruesome pile. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling. No more of that. He would not torture himself with visions of her emptied eyes and cut throat. He had come to deeply resent his own mind; that used to have gifted him with hope at least, as well as further torments. He remembered what Vys had asked: if he expected her to rescue him, since he couldn't find her himself. He began to imagine a foolish child's dream: Her, returning as strong as ever, Anakin's lightsaber dashing through the bars of this prison, she would be unstoppable, the burning blue light reflecting on her skin... Her hand outstretching to his. He reached feebly, mournfully to the only source of light. It was diminished.

He knew the truth: her suffering was worse than even his. When he felt the light of her life re-lit, it was agony. Both his and her own. Ben bit his lip, leaving a harsh, iron taste. He missed hope. He even missed his rage.

He used to think perhaps that losing the heat of his anger would be a blessing, and as Kylo Ren, he had cursed himself a thousand times for his compassion. Yet in both cases, he couldn't have been more wrong. This numbness, this empty state was so much worse. To be a husk. A cave. A shell. Worthless, dark and cold. Not a single soul in sight apart from death herself. He had taken living within his own body for granted. He used to possess so much: in build, in power, in the heat of his flesh and blood. Now, he only felt a dull ache in his thinned muscles. A chilling silence consumed his ears, his eyes unwilling to either see or close. His skin was still pale enough to almost reach grey, the bones beginning to be more visible.

He did not know for how long he lay there in silence. He struggled to construct... Some new plan. Some point. What plan?! What point?! What POINT?! He had been reduced to nothing at all. So much less than the nothing that he had been ignorant enough to call Rey.

Rey... 

Ben buried his face in his hands. She should not see him ever again, if he was to remain this way. He had failed everyone who had dared to enter the cavern of his heart. Now, he had failed her too. If Vys found her...

Ben finally moved to sit up from the ground. He hugged his trembling arms. They would not be warmed. Why was it so bitterly cold, so painful, when he couldn't feel any other sensations?

He could hear her approach. No... He couldn't... He couldn't handle her! He was sure in that moment that he wouldn't have the strength to be able to resist whatever she offered or forced upon him. It wasn't just the strength he lacked... But the will too.

The tray on the floor, a kind of thick soup upon it. He felt her beside him. He did not lift his head. He remembered the sting of when she had grasped his hair. That smothering, black cloud...

He would not eat. He was sure he would expel anything he put into his body. That his tongue would not taste it. That his lips would not receive it. His entire body ached to be nourished, but even a simple bowl of soup was far too much... Too overwhelming. Had he not eaten in days? No wonder he was weak.

She moved the bowl to his lap when he sat as motionless as a toy she might play with. Taking a spoon, she thrust it into his numb and unresponsive hand. He could feel his sickness rising even at the smell of the mixture. He looked away from it as it steamed before him.

"Eat." Vys warned.

Her tone was dark, her mere word like icy manacles, chaining him to reality. Ben shook his head, his eyes closing, still naively believing that it could help transport him somewhere else. Anywhere. Anywhere else-

He felt her grasp his jaw. She turned his face, he could just feel the points of her talons on the flesh of his cheeks.

"EAT!" She shrieked, a shriek that would be enough to shatter glass.

Ben's ears throbbed at her abrupt, blood-curdling cry. He swallowed. He considered tossing the bowl across the room, watching it fracture and break, the soup sliding on the wall, a wreckage like everything else on this miserable vessel.

He hungered. So weak... So empty... If she had drained him completely, would he be nothing but dust? Would it be a mercy? Or a pain unlike any other? He knew Vys. If he thought he knew suffering, she would prove him wrong time and time again.

He drew his eyes down to the waiting mixture. Lifting the spoon in his trembling hand, he dipped the end into the thick liquid. Pale brown. A first mouthful.

Far too thick and filling. Warm, and... As empty a taste as tree bark.

He continued nevertheless. She seemed to watch intently, a blindfold over her black sockets. Ben found himself staring back in the silence. At least if he met her gaze with his own, he would not be so much of an object. He took a fourth, shaking mouthful. Already his progress slowed. He lowered the spoon, his stomach twisting. He thought he could feel vomit rising in his throat. Vysera's hand came over his own. She helped him lift the spoon as if he were her child. Ben retched. He pushed away the bowl.

"Later." He begged. "I'll have more la-"

"-you will have more NOW!" Vys spat.

Ben could not draw his eyes from her. His only company in the Galaxy at this time. Possibly for all time, if he was her prisoner forever. He could cry, but perhaps he had wept too much. There was water on that tray. Ben took a sip. He sighed. Swallowing down protests, he took up the bowl and continued, gulp by gulp.

The effects of the drain would reverse. She knew they would. They always had. It was the only reason she stopped herself from pitying him too greatly. This was but a fraction, a scrap of what her life had been in his absence. She watched him, or at least what she was capable of without stealing the use of another pair of eyes. None on the ship could aid her - the dead did not see and she did not want to put herself within the decomposing cage of a corpse. It was not a pleasant place to be. Nor was she ready or willing to see herself through Ben's eyes. Not after everything that had transpired. At least, not yet. Perhaps in time his perception of her might change but for now, she was contented to see the delicate shifting aura of his energy.

She could hear him, his struggle. The subtle sounds of his choking, his stomach grumbling in protest. It filled her with a ghastly sense of satisfaction. If she didn't make him do this, he would fade away. She would be the firm hand to pull him from his wallowing. He was yet to understand - every ending is a new beginning. His time as a slave to the First Order, his preoccupation with Rey... All of it would spell the start of a new and beautiful chapter. But first... He had to earn it.

Her chin tilted imperiously. His warden when she could have been so much more but he churlishly rejected her. In time, she would make sure that his rejection was as painful to him as it was to her.

He drank the water, trying to stomach it all. There wasn't a great deal of soup to begin with but on his empty stomach he would soon feel full to bursting. Not another bite... His body might try to reject it. His stomach might churn, the cold sweat that heralded the return of his food might break out over his body... And if that were the case, he could bloody well clean it up. She was through with cleaning up his messes.

She could hear the systems chirping and whirring - signaling that they'd be breaking atmosphere soon.

"I expect this to be gone by the time I return, Ben." She got to her feet - she had a ship to land...

~

She returned, crouching before him. Her hands searched the ground before him, finding the tray, her fingers slipping over the edge of the bowl, swiping her finger along the bottom. It was empty. She smiled at him.

"Very good. I am pleased." She crossed behind him, hands slipping over the broad curve of his shoulders.... She would rebuild him. Make him strong, again. But for now... She slipped her hands under his shoulders and pulled him to his feet. It took a great deal of effort, even with her renewed strength. He was not only tall but he was still bulky and his limbs, especially his leg, were protesting. It was time for his ailments to be cured. She might not have the time to prepare him, to do to him as had been done to her so he might unlock the chains of his flesh... But she could show him...

"We're going to go for a walk." She told him, arm slipping around his waist, firm and sure in her grip, keeping him on his feet. She set a decent pace, taking them down through the cargo hold... If he slowed or if he halted, she was sure to make a swift correction and maintain their progress down the loading ramp. She was elated - oh, this day could change so many things!

First Order officers stood before them, a squadron of troopers behind them.

"You're not authori-" The officer fell silent, his eyes falling to the Supreme Leader... Former....? They were caught in an amusing predicament. A small handful offered a salute to his sagging form - suspicion cast in her direction but she merely embraced it, an alluring and curvaceous figure beside their old leader - shrouded and mysterious. She could feel the prickle of their growing fascination of her along her skin. Yes... She could grow used to this.

"Your Supreme Leader requires medical attention." She pushed him forward into the knot of soldiers. They caught him just before he could fall "And..." Her hand slipped to the officer's cheek, "I want to see your garrison." She offered a comely smile, a generous curve of her lips. They stared, hesitant - unable to decide what they should do. One of the officers was beginning to lift their arm - the undercurrent of his presence, the curdling tension and duplicity wafted from him like the sweet scent of a pastry baking. She shook her head, extending her hand. She could feel it more succinctly now. He was not going to be calling for medical assistance. He should have. She curled her fingers into a fist, rolling one finger down at a time and his arm snapped in three places. Violent howls of agony filled the air. She did not need to see, his sleeves need not be rolled up for her to know that sharp shards of bone had broken through his flesh.

"Now you'll need two medical teams. Hurry now." Her voice was a sweet song of mockery. Honey dripping from razor wire. The first officer to address them stepped forward, calling in medical support at the landing bay while Vysera stood, hand on her hip while her foot tapped an impatient rhythm. The medics arrived, loading Ben onto a stretcher.

"Discretion. Until I have declared it - there are to be no outgoing transmissions." She waved a hand to the wailing officer who had since fallen to his knees. "Officer..." She pushed into his mind, his incessant sounds of discomfort falling away into silence broken only by his haggard breathing. "Lenk, here, has already paid the price of insubordination. Ensure that you do not join him." She released her grip on his mind and clasped her hands behind her back. He was loyal to the new Emperor. She would enjoy his destruction.

"I'll show you to the garrison commandant." The other officer approached, lifting his arm. She settled her hand upon it and offered him a dazzling smile. "What an excellent idea but first.. Tell them not to board the ship." She ordered quietly and he turned to bark the order at the others, a message relayed down the order of rank.

She collected a spare trooper on their way to the Commandant's quarters, setting her leeching touch to her skin, allowing her to seep into the soldier's eyes. She could see through the woman's eyes. She was not disappointed - the likeness was... Suitable for her requirements. Tall, broad... A mane of thick dark hair, strong features. She bowed low, offering the Commandant a twisting smile.

"Commandant Morran, I am Vysera Ren."

He had looked surprised at the intrusion. Now a thread of apprehension and confusion wound together with suspicion as his dark eyes fell to the Officer who had escorted her and the trooper who lingered at the newcomer's side.

"Vysera Ren. What can the First Order do for you?" A polite formality. She could sense something in him... What? Was he another turncoat? Following the loudest man in the room rather than his true leader? The thought almost made her smirk - she would show him what it was to be the loudest...

"Routine inspection. Amongst your number here is the Supreme Leader. I expect you to show us due respect and hospitality."

"The Supreme Leader?" His voice was a bewildered echo. The Supreme Leader had been taken... Presumed dead...

"Show me your grounds and we shall visit him after." Her hand settled on his arm - the officer was dismissed.

The garrison was much as she had suspected. A giant parade ground in the courtyard. Quarters, neat and tidy. She was taken to the comms room as she had requested and subsequently, the technicians began to disconnect from the system. In a way, it would send a message all of its own. A light in the night sky of the First Order blinking out. She had chosen this base for a specific reason... Out of the way, just enough to delay the arrival of backup. A wide stage for her to direct this streak of pageantry...

"To your medical facilities, then."

It was a flurry of activity, nurses and doctors were hovering around Ben's bed. Running tests, drawing blood... He had been stripped down to his small clothes, as they examined his body, trying to determine the worst of the damage and where they ought to start....

"Where... Has he been?" Morran addressed her, unable to take his eyes from the Supreme Leader's compromised form. She could feel the rise of fear from within him, the shiver running up his spine.

"Snuffing out the Resistance. Performing his duty." She wanted to draw closer to him... Ben... But she needed to allow them to do their work. "I wish I could say that of all the First Order. Yet here you all are... Allowing a usurper to inhabit The Ordinance... To rule you all and yet having done nothing to deserve it." Her head tilted towards him dangerously, a slow and owlish movement of a predator observing its prey. The Commandant's face twisted into a mask of anger. How dare she! Who did she think she was?

"Emperor Hux has served the First Order since he was a child!" He hissed, drawing near to her, determined to show his authority. "Many of us have served beside him at some point or another..." His voice was low, a growl of warning.

"Did you?" She purred, allowing him to eliminate some of the distance between them. He nodded curtly. "Hm. Tell me about him." The Commandant shook his head. This was beyond absurd! Beyond...

"I think you should leave. Any allegiance we have..." He looked to Ben's form in the hospital bed. "Is to him. I don't know you...." She raised a hand and he fell silent. There was something about her that was... Deeply disconcerting. Perhaps it was the way she navigated as if she could see though her eyes were bound with dark twists of fabric.

"You will show me, then...."

She swept aside the curtains of his mind. He stood, held in place by an invisible hand, quietly gasping for air as she swept through his mundane memories. All of these First Order grunts have similar minds, similar memories. Whoever had trained them had done a magnificent job in ensuring that they rarely spawned an original thought. Their free will chained. Moreso, now, she realized, joining Commandant Morran in the memory of an assembly - the red haired Emperor screaming his address - the consequence of sentimentality. The punishment for insubordination... His cure for the universe. How very curious... She pushed onward, wanting to see more.... Weaknesses... Vulnerabilities... Or simply, flaws…


	5. Chapter 5

Where was she going? What was she to do next? Murder more innocents? Burn down villages, as he had once done? His stomach lurched. He knew he would feel worse if he didn't obey her for the time being. Not even his body was his anymore. No longer would he decide what to eat and when he might eat it. No longer could he decide when to live, when to die, when to sleep, when to thirst or be hungry, when to walk, or run, or lie motionless. When to fight, what to think, what to hope for, when to be angry... it was not his. He was hers. He shook his head as soon as she had left. Such thoughts would not help. If anything could, it would not be giving up. Somewhere, his rage, his love, must remain. He would find it. He would drive himself not to stop. Never to stop. Nothing else could comfort him except to know that he would try. Keep trying. He had to. He repeated it: I have to try. Rey would want him to, wouldn’t she? Even if he feared for her, wouldn't she still want him to try?

When the soup was gone, Ben laid back, swallowing and scanning the ceiling, though he didn't know what he was scanning for. His lips trembled. Still so cold...

She was back. Her fingers searched. A rare moment of confirmation; she was indeed blind, even if the force could help her see. Ben grit his teeth. He could somehow feel the sensation of her nail scraping along the bowl as her finger met the inside to discover that he had done what she demanded. He felt no better for it. He was bloated, yet still somehow hungrier than ever. She smiled. Smiled, like a display of glistening knives.

Ben had grown firm. What was that? Was it... determination? Had he maintained it, even after... whatever it was she had done? the draining sensation? He felt her step nearer, she was coming behind him. What was she about to...? Her hands came over his shoulders. Ben hunched, suppressing a shiver. Her clawed fingers were coming around him. A bird, stealing prey from the ground below. Ben knew what was about to happen. He winced, bracing himself as his feet scrambled to find the floor.

Ben blinked. She was taking him... with her? Where?! Where had they landed? He was sure they had landed. What did she intend?! Why did it involve him?! A thousand panicked thoughts battled for his attention. They were silenced by her arm around his waist. In any other state or situation, Ben would be sure that he could throw her off, that he would not be led to whatever she planned without a significant fight. Yet a part of him did not resist. Whatever she had in store, it was off the prison of the corpse-ridden ship and out in the open. His thoughts of escape were stifled by the lack of cooperation of his limbs. He did not even mean to struggle, yet he knew his size was still a strain for her to manage. Rippling stings strung through his weak muscles. His ribs ached in protest, his heart still in his mouth as he realised that she was, indeed, taking him from the ship. He could sense something different in her. Less of a hunger and more of... an excitement? He hardly dared to ponder on why. Her intentions were beyond him and yet they had the power to instill terror within him before they had even reached the open air of the new planet.

Ben was stunned. First Order officers. He knew their faces... Lenk...? The shock of the waiting ranks was written on their faces and even somehow conveyed through expressionless masks, - the visors of which, Ben was sure, reflected his own amazement in equal measure. Of all the places she could take him, why here? Why where he could be recognised and attended to? Was she really so confident as to take that risk? Ben wanted to scream, wanted to explain, to give orders. He knew he ought to be humiliated. His cheeks ought to heat with shame; them seeing him weakened like this, unable to even hold his own weight.

You're not authori-

Your Supreme Leader requires medical attention.

She hissed it from behind him, before he was released, a shot of pain torn from his knee, he plummeted, the grip of hands and the obstacle of trooper’s bodies managing to halt his descent before the final impact. Ben was thrust upward, they scrambled to hold him. Why did he feel like a prisoner of his own army? Not his army...

The image of the bastard: hair like fire and his eyes like ice. Hux. For how long had Ben been gone? It felt like months. Months slowly becoming years. Lenk was like the rest: he valued Hux, supported Hux. Ben was a shadow, a wolf amongst sheep, and they despised him for it. They would one day rise against him in number, he knew it. Was this the day? This was not his kingdom, this was not Ben’s galaxy, anymore. Ben once believed he was not a man to be afraid. Vysera and Hux had taught him differently. Now, Ben could hardly remember a time when he was not afraid. He currently feared a different prison altogether. Then again, if he found Hux... would it not be a mercy? Would Rey not be somewhere there? In his grasp? Could Ben not find her? As soon as the idea occurred to him, he knew that he was drastically ignorant to even entertain such a notion.

He didn't entirely hear Vysera’s words. His racing thoughts and the distracting sensations of the small crowd closing on him had blocked her out. It was only after the ear-splitting shrieks began to sound that he realised she had inflicted her power upon an unfortunate officer. Upon... Lenk. Following orders, following Hux, and completely ignorant of what punishment it would bring. Past the uniforms, Ben caught a glimpse of the stripped, jagged bone and severed sinew. His eyes rolled back, his sickness having not entirely left him. His sight blurred. A thousand words fought to escape his lips. Would his calls for help, his warnings to them, be lost? He had another chance. Even if she wouldn't let it happen. Even if she had dangled a bone before him to try and snap at. He promised himself. He promised Rey. The only way to keep sanity was to simply try. The haze, the mist of his vision influenced his non-existent balance further. He thought he had fallen again. He felt some creases under his fragile skin, he was sent through the air. A stretcher- he realised.

Discretion. Until I have declared it - there are to be no outgoing transmissions.

Somehow her voice resurfaced in clarity. Ben’s heart sank. They can't- how could they possibly listen to her?! Ben struggled, though he didn't know what he was struggling against, and what he would do if he were to be liberated.

Back in a room of snow. Not quite as numbing, not entirely as cold without Vys there. Still as blinding, as sterile, as smothering as he might remember. He couldn't recall when and how his outer-clothes had been stripped from his limbs, but he shuddered, being exposed. Everyone was moving so quickly. Yet surely they would listen...

Ben saw a nurse, a preparing a needle. He caught his breath.

“You. Nurse.” Ben choked, he couldn't seem to hear his own words.

Still, she turned, or be it briefly, her attention occupied by her set of equipment or accompanying doctors. The fact remained that he had caught her eye, the intensity of his own imprisoning hers, as he himself was.

“Supreme Leader.” She addressed with haste but also, to Ben’s relief, some reverence.

Ben tried to sit, his own weight straining his arms. Doctor’s hands were at his shoulders, pushing him back down. Ben was sure they attempted to be gentle, that they were stunned to even lay a hand on him, but his form was weak. It was hard to resist.

“S-Supreme Leader,” one of them stammered. “You mustn't...”

Ben wondered what they could do. Perhaps they could help his infected wound and his remaining fractures from the crash, but the force itself had been used to drain him. What equipment might inject love back into his heart? Surely no needle in his arm could power his anger or restore the innocence of his youth?

Ben turned back to the nurse. If he had the full strength of his voice, he was sure he could command the whole room. As it stood, however, his voice was the sound of a dead leaf brushing the ground in a gentle wind.

“What's your name?” Ben asked her.

Oak-coloured hair, a gentle face, olive skin... Ben could believe, could pray that... that this nurse had something of Rey’s kindness in her. Enough of her care, to help him. It was better that Ben be Hux’s than Vysera’s. Ben could only hope that Hux would not end his life without the consideration of some kind of negotiation. They were high stakes, but at least Hux was a man. Deformed by monstrous acts, but hardly what Vys had to offer him.

The nurse was obviously stunned by his question to her; her eyes widening, though her hands were still occupied with the preparation of various tools.

“Solkam.” She answered simply. “Joan Solkam.”

“Joan.” Ben repeated. He raised his voice as much as he could manage, ignoring the stinging across his throat and tongue. “I need to send a message, Joan.”

She stared, her hands trembled over switches as Ben felt them begin to address the problem of his knee. Ben could sense the bewilderment in the room. Had they ever even seen something like this? It felt like a waste of time. At any moment, she would be back, Vys would be back...

“I...” Joan faltered. “That's not my... we’re not authorised to-“

“-you are authorised by ME.” Ben emphasised, though he croaked, and was smothered by the ongoing hassle.

The nurse, Joan, was standing further away, becoming increasingly lost in the doctors that seemed to swarm for his attention.

“Joan!” Ben gasped, his voice was still raw, and like the growl of some animal, it halted her. “You have to tell them!” He pleaded.

Did she nod? Did she salute? Did she speak again? He couldn't separate her from the vacant faces clouding the compressed landscape of the room.

He turned to the others. His heart sped with panic. This was too much of a mirror of his situation after the crash. Vysera would destroy them all. “You have to leave this place, ALL of you!”

He could hear the distant voices discussing administering him anaesthetic. General anaesthetic?

“Tell them to kill Vysera Ren!” Ben fought on, regardless. He wrenched himself upward from his bed. “Tell Hux to send everything we have!” The doctors were around him, making protests, pulling him back to the mattress. 

They must have thought him delirious. They must have thought him insane, unstable, lost. They were not his. These were the forces of Hux. Ben was losing his voice again. He could only whisper harshly to battle against the voices around him, as his final, feeble will also wavered. “Everything to kill her...” He managed to wheeze.

What if she somehow heard him? What if he angered her further? What if she was watching? Watching at that very moment? He felt something prick into his flesh. A needle? Black spots fell into his vision. He fought against yet another unconsciousness.

“You're... wasting time...” Ben said in a whisper, before the abyss threatened to drown out his senses.

~

The humans, the insensitives... They were weak. Easy to navigate if one knew the switches to flip, dials to turn, the levers to pull. Just like flying a ship. And yet, like machines and ticking devices - they could be unmade. Taken apart, deconstructed down to the last tiny atom. Their bodies straining and pulling with the fibers of their bodies suspended in air. A living mobile, a child's plaything... Putting them together after such a feat... Well, that was significantly more difficult.

They could be made docile, easily herded, like cattle, - if one had teeth as sharp as the shepherd beasts. She would be the wolf to these sheep... Following a false Emperor... Morran's defenses crumbled like an ancient dam. Her presence filled him, breaking the banks of the rivers and channels of his mind. For a few brief moments, it was easy to imagine that they had become one being. She saw all that he was: his motives, his thoughts, his desires... And there, just within her grasp, waiting for her eagerly to consume it - were his memories.

She devoured them; the talons of her mind ripping through his recollections. Drawn to the flicker of the former general's hair - a flame amongst a colorless backdrop of endless blank faced masks. Like Ben, he was apart from the rest of them... Among them, but not of them. No matter how hard he toiled alongside them... She saw Morran's respect for him. He was admired by this fool. The longer she looked, the more she could see Hux as his commandant viewed him. His strength, his purpose! His unyielding faith and passion in this cause. This cause... Because they had no other.

She focused on the memories that rushed by her. At one point, Armitage Hux had performed the role of a marksman. A sniper. The memory was splintered, intersected with several others. A remarkable talent... Morran mourned his transfer to the status of General, - they needed a man like him. Ruthless, cunning. But proud - Hux would be his General, his tactical mind would not be laid to waste by a stray blaster round or the folly of a commanding officer who valued his troops’ lives too little. Morran and millions of others would follow his scalding cries into battle - he ignited something within them... She focused on these tendrils of thoughts, gleaning from him what she truly sought. Hux was a man of a bigger vision. The long game. He was patient and when he pulled the trigger... It was an exacting shot, precise and without error.

She released Morran, he struggled to breathe, grasping her arm as he doubled over. She allowed him the privilege of touching her while she mulled over what she had discovered. Was that why this Hux had collected Rey? Was she the bullet he intended to fire straight into Ben's chest? Did he realize what she had come to realize? That the young woman... hardly a woman, barely more than a girl - that she was his weakness? It had many implications... And possibilities. She would take him from his throne in due course, but she had to admit... Her curiosity was indeed struck.

There would be time to address it later, of course. She turned her gaze towards the bed where Ben had been laid. They had successfully rendered him unconscious - already they were erecting barriers, turning this hospital bay into an operating theater. A hive of activity. Some were leaving, others undergoing the quarantine-like procedures of preparation. A glimpse of Ben between the flaps of thick, clear plastic made her frown. Angry, red lines of infection, reaching up his thigh. She had been able to stave off the worst of it for so long but it seemed what the Force was willing, or able to provide in terms of healing, was coming to its end. It was time now to embrace these malleable humans and their cold sciences.

She turned, realizing that the commandant was still clutching her arm. His breathing still ragged. But... His eyes were half-lidded, a flush on his cheeks. She found her lips curving into a satisfied smirk. It was not distress... But pleasure. There was release to be found in having been torn so wide open. A bizarre empowerment from having all power taken away. Through the pain... The struggle and the violation - there was freedom to be found. She watched him, through the eyes of the trooper. His sweat-slicked hair, his parted lips... Add a few scars and she might just be able to imagine Ben in his place.

"More..." He rasped, straightening, pulling her closer to his frame. Not quite as broad... But... He was grinning at her now, she knew that look. If she had any doubts as to what he was about to suggest, they vanished as his hands trailed from her waist to her hips. She smiled, teeth like daggers bared to him.

"Elsewhere... Let the doctors complete their task." She purred, hand slipping to his. She had little desire to pose as a distraction for the doctors and nurses diligently working to restore their Supreme Leader.

He was eager. A young boy on the way to open his presents during Winter's Veil. Morran was foolish but she could hardly blame him. He had felt true power. Raw and visceral. Straight down into the core of his being. Most living creatures found such a thing to be irresistible. She had once been so naïve. Power was an intoxicant. Like their alcohol and spice. Alluring.... He had tasted something he could never truly possess and for men like him... It drove him even harder to try.

Truth be told, she would have liked to surveil the garrison a little better. A page out of the former General's page - to have a well thought out plan. Yet it did not take them long, once the doors of his personal quarters had closed, to rid one another of their clothing. They fell into his bed, a tangle of limbs. But in her impatience, she had spent him too quickly... Her own gluttonous need, the thrill of his touch - imagining another's hands in place of his own... When she had finished with him, she waited, curled up to his side, listening to his heart pounding away as he pushed a hand through his sweat slicked hair. She remained still until sleep took him. Smoothing a hand over his chest, taking... Taking... Just a little. Non Force users had significantly smaller amount of reserves from which to pull their essences from. Nevertheless, their sparks burned bright. Short lives ready for the wasting...

She peeled his arm from where he had draped it across her waist, pulling her close. The sun was setting... But there was still plenty of time for her to clean the scent of their deeds from her body. She emerged from his hygiene compartment fresh and composed. She donned her clothes and made her way back to the infirmary.

She grabbed the arm of the closest person passing by - her eyes had wandered off.... She'd need a new pair. These... Belonged to a young doctor.

"How is the Supreme Leader?" She queried, pushing through the doors, dragging him along with her. He was looking better, at least- her obscured vision of him through the flaps of the operating theatre. He appeared to be in a state of rest. Awake? She couldn't tell. His coloring looked much improved…

~

A gentle heat from a saffron sun. Ben was stood on a granite balcony overlooking a landscape of shimmering cobalt water, dancing with the pastel shades in pink and sapphire. A spring season on a bountiful planet. It was tranquil. The air was not silent with the fear to make sound, but quiet, as if all of the planet was in rest, in a peace that could be so rare for the Galaxy's history of war and corruption. Ben overlooked a patio which extended over the glistening ripples of that ocean. Was it his ocean? Rey's ocean? It wasn't Vorkenna; the architecture of these structures appeared even older and, in places, even more intricate: carvings crawled in stone along the columns and across water features. Lush green hills rose upon some distance to the right. Trees stretched from below, light glittering in the leaves, while scarlet flowers adorned vases of matching grey stone to the balconies.

Ben could believe that he had died, but what heaven, what release was this, without Rey in it? He felt as lost and lonely as ever. How did he get here?

His eyes scanned the lush green of the plant life. Rey would surely love this place... Ben saw a woman below him. She was doe-like in grace, her skin was a warm colour that glowed as if she reflected the sun. Her flowing brown hair was matched only by the movement of the waves of her dress, the pale spring colours of yellow meeting a soft violet hue. Sunset? Or perhaps the colours of dawn...

Ben's heart leapt, -only to instantly sink, when he glimpsed her properly. This woman was not Rey. She did not have her flight as she walked, nor the intricacies of the juxtaposition between the ferocity and sensitivity of her eyes, nor the same kind of tenderness and optimism in the curve of her lips. Even from a distance, Ben could see all of this, as he watched another figure come to join her side. If Ben hadn't noticed his lighter hair and more energetic gait, he would have thought the man to look like himself, - as he had thought for only a split-second that the woman looked as Rey did. He wore robes that made a silhouette against the light of the day. Jedi clothing, although it was untypically dark, Ben noticed. Ben’s curiosity grew as he inched further forward, resting on the edge of the balcony to peer down on them. Why did they look so familiar? Then the young man turned. He glanced upward, meeting Ben’s eyes with his own.

Ben pulled back as the realisation hit him. Those eyes... as blue as the hue of his lightsaber.

...Anakin?

Ben gasped, the ground from under him was fracturing, dismantling into pieces. He was falling! Falling through darkness all over again.

Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

He clutched at nothing. Pulling at the fabric of the air. That beautiful place, drowned in a sliding and tormenting abyss. How could he go back? Where was he falling to? The wind was knocked out of him. When would he reach solid ground? Or was he to float forever? Floating on a sea of never-ending night? No. Something pulled him, like a ship tumbling upon a new atmosphere.

He fell on his hands and knees. Furs and skins. Sandgrains. Cloths constructing the sloping walls of a tent or tipi hut. It was dark. A faint lamplight was cast over two bodies. Ben turned to face them fully and was once again greeted with Anakin’s gaze. It was different. Ben found himself caught by it, paralysed by it. A mirror, as sharp as a blade. Ben lowered his look to the other body, lying in Anakin's arms. Arcing streaks of blood upon her face. Her wrists raw and reddened. There was no life in that woman’s eyes, yet Anakin’s own eyes were two whirlpools of churning flames. Ben saw himself. He was hugging his limp mother close to his chest. Ben’s trembling lip stilled with the strength of solemn resolve. Anakin did likewise, the two of them still somehow facing each other. Anakin was somewhere close to Ben, yet a thousand stars away. He was full of unrelenting agony, but still containing that familiar numbness that Ben knew all too well. Ben wanted to speak, to warn him, he was about to do something... something Ben knew would spread the pain he felt, -like a terrible infestation, multiplying and multiplying until nothing good, nothing kind would remain!

A desperate woman’s cry sounded from somewhere unseen as Anakin stood up from the ground, passing through Ben as if he were only a shadow.

You're a good person, don't do this!

Don’t do this, Ben. Please don't go this way.

Rey?! Ben was on his feet, tearing open the flimsy walls of fabric. A mistake! Anakin was making a mistake! Ben had to tell him, but her voice had summoned him forward. He would find her first. Rey?! He called her name over and over in his mind, finding he still could not speak. I'm right here!! I won't do it... I'm yours! I won't make the same mistakes!

He raced blindly onward, drawing apart the shelter of the tipi, only to roll and collapse into a pit of smouldering flames! FIRE! Oh Force! Where had the fire come from?! He was burning! Ben was burning, his skin was peeling, peeling away! He begged for it to stop, writhing on the ground, eaten alive by blistering red teeth and red-hot tongues. He was turning to ashes, he could not move, except to quiver from this unyielding power, this uncontrollable... rage!

It shut out. Ben’s peculiar and unwarranted relief washed over him as he awoke, awoke on the cool surface of an operating table, his heart still speeding and alight with the agony of that dream. Vys had taken him here. Where was she?! Ben felt a shiver down his spine as he tried to grip onto reality. He lifted his head. It was as heavy as iron. He looked down his body...

To find that his legs... were gone.


	6. Chapter 6

He tried to scream. Once more it didn't sound. This- this couldn't be happening! How could this be possible?! He wanted to lift his hands to his eyes, to shut it out. He turned and found that he had no arms...

Ben was breathless. His skin was charred, flaking, scarred, wrinkled, tight, broken beyond healing, every move, every breath was filled with a torture unlike any that he could call to mind. How... how had this happened?! What did he do?! What had he done?! He could not answer, he could not remember. He was panicking, admittedly. He was caught in a silent, speeding torrent of horror. Was this his punishment? A punishment for what destruction he had brought? How could he live?! His laboured breaths grew hollow. An echo. A dark mask, fitted over his face.

A mistake! Ben, this is a mistake! You're not supposed to be here! This is not your body. This is not your story, this is not how it will end! He shook, wanting to shake away this vision, this awful, consuming illusion.

The pain eased. Ben was elsewhere once more. He was floating. He could not recall this place. Where was he? And who was he? He knew, from the emptiness that surrounded him, that his parents were dead. That the woman... - the woman who he had seen as Rey for only an unregistered second, was gone, just like the older woman in the tipi hut. He felt the presence he could remember from within the Ordinance, before his lightsaber was fixed. He was calmed again so quickly. A mere switch. A mere turn, as if his earlier vision had unfolded to reveal an entirely different world altogether.

Ben must remember this moment. He could not comprehend the grief, the horrific hatred woven into the very bones of the corpse-like body he had just inhabited. Whatever the root of it was, he was sure he had just been shown the very heart of something evil. Something that Ben could have, and still could, become. He had not yet lost everything. The dark would not lure him too far. He must remember Rey's plea for him not to be lost. He could feel Anakin’s influence. His comfort. Ben must not cross down this path. Even if Rey herself was drawn into that icy grip of mindless death, Ben would not fall to Kylo Ren. If everything was lost, then somehow, somehow... if it was truly possible, he would learn how to lose.

Ben resurfaced. It was sterile, still. He checked for arms and legs. Yes: he was himself and his limbs at least, were complete. Even his injured and infected leg felt stronger. He thought himself to be awake, truly, this time. He shifted, trying to find a place of comfort. It was cool in that room. He found his skin. It wasn't quite as greyed as before. Nor was it burned all over into a rough bark of red and black. Ben did not think he could feel gratitude for all that he had dreamt, but Anakin had shown him one thing that Vysera would never take. There was one thing that Ben would never let her take: and it was his faith in that new light Rey had helped him to discover. He would not be turned again. If he lost everything, could he at least attempt not to lose whatever would be left of himself, after all that he had learned from those who truly mattered? He owed it to them. He owed it to her, - to stay strong.

He avoided being blinded by the harsh light above him, trying to remind himself of the sensations, the feeling of this room. There were doctors still there. Ben’s memory was back. How long had he slept for?! What could he do?! He felt better than before... surely he could do... something?! Where was Vys?! Ben’s wide eyes searched the spotless scene around him. He had become hopeful in the briefest of moments that his nightmare was worse than this reality, but what if he was proven wrong, as he was in the past? What if his true nightmare was only about to begin? Damn HER! WHERE was she?! Ben searched, attempting to close out any other sounds of beeping devices in the room so that he might find her. He paused, as if he had broken the string of an instrument unexpectedly. She was there all right. He could feel her. He could feel her snow-covered influence, in every shadow Ben could see. His heart was hammering. He was covered in sweat from the intensity of his nightmare. Vys... what would she do next...?!

~

"He is stable. Improving. Surprisingly well. There was.... An episode or two where it was something of a game of chance..." The chief doctor stood before Vys. His dark eyes falling to the Commandant, who was like a hulking shadow behind her, but Morran did not see; his eyes were fixed on the blindfolded woman before him. Everyday she made this journey to query and he always stood with her, eyes almost half-hooded with... It appeared to be desire but none could quite understand the rapturous power she seemed to hold over him. Before she had arrived, he was ardently... as the rest of them must be: free of attachment and decidedly celibate.

Yet now, in the evenings, even at times in the afternoon or mornings if one passed before the doors to his office, they could hear... Perverse sounds. His pleading cries for more... More! MORE! of whatever it was that she had given him. Or, more accurately, what she took from him.

"Why do you keep looking at him?" She inquired, leaning her face towards him slowly, - her head tipped to the side, as if she was examining him closely. "I am the one who is speaking to you." Her tone sharpened. It is in moments like these, that her guise slips. It only served to foster the growing sense of foreboding. A tension rising in the garrison. There is too much to digest. First, that the Supreme Leader is not dead - a fact that has subtly divided the troops. Second, this mysterious... Other Ren has disabled their capability to send transmissions... And she stands with their Commandant as if she belongs there, giving orders that are only followed because of the... Fear.

"I-I... That is, I just... I am used to delivering reports to..." The doctor's eyes flicked to Morran. He had not moved, transfixed by the intricate twisting of her dark hair, the curve of her waist.... Vys crossed her arms, the corner of her lips twisting down into a frown.

"How many more days? I am growing impatient." She informs him, delighting in the way she can feel the fluctuation of his pulse, the sense of panic rising. She supposes it is warranted. Officer Lenk wasn't the only one who had tasted her wrath over the last several days.

"Two! Two, I believe would be sufficien-"

She cut him off with the slow raising of her hand. He swallowed hard, again- his eyes flicked nervously towards Commandant Morran, who had only moved closer to Vysera Ren. His gaze was so hungry, as though he might devour her here and now. The doctor looked away, down at his feet, clearly uncomfortable.

"You have exactly one day remaining, doctor. He is to be ready for the presentation tomorrow afternoon. Fail me now and I assure you, you will have no second opportunity to do so again." She smiled, a wide and generous smile. Were it not for the threat on his life, he may have even thought her ruby lips were pleasant, when curved in such a way. Instead, he could only adjust his collar before snapping a sharp salute and returning to Ben's bedside, checking in with the other staff that hovered around him.

"Come, Morran." Vys purred, taking his hand and lead him out of the infirmary.

~

She hadn't been wasting her time. It was not all devoted to reaping pleasure from the flesh of the Commandant. They stood on the balcony together where she planned to make her move. The parade grounds had been transformed; the mighty symbol of the First Order hung on its gargantuan banner behind them. She smiled, her hands clasped behind her back. It was a dream come true. She knew what it was to feel powerful but... She could understand the allure of rule, now. All these lives, these troops that she had spent the last several days getting to know, invading their minds and discerning certain truths about them - they scurried to obey the bidding of Morran who answered, helplessly, to her every whim.

When at last the day was through, and she was satisfied with all the preparations - that the following day should be as grand as she had spent these days dreaming it to be, she took Morran to her bed one last time.

That night, she indulged his pleas for more. She took more from him than she had before. When she was finished, he lay on his side, lips parted as he panted, eyes half-lidded, his cheeks gaunt and his skin pale. The signs of his pleasure slicked his belly but he made no move to shift from where she had left him. She knew it was likely that he would stay here, possibly in this very position until she came back to collect him. But she had no desire to wait by his side, nor to hear his heart regain a steady rhythm.

Instead, she elected to spend this night at the side of Ben's bed in the infirmary. She watched him sleep. Her expression serene but stained with longing. She took his hand, drawing it to her lips and she pressed gentle kisses to each of his knuckles. The next day, she would show him... She would make him understand. He would understand why they were destined for so much more. Together.

~

It was time now. The doctors did not disappoint. She had made it clear that their lives depended on her satisfaction. When she swept into the room, Ben was waking up. She smiled, her heart lifting at the knowledge he was well on the way to a full recovery. She came to his bedside, her excitement barely contained as she dismissed the remaining staff, leaving them alone for a few glorious moments. Morran, she had told, to assemble the troops in a very particular way.

"Ben! You're awake at last!" She breathed, settling on the edge of the bed, she caught his hand in hers, pressing her forehead to his knuckles. 

Ben was stunned into silence, her voice penetrated all other sounds. He had only just begun to take it all in when she had surfaced, seemingly from nowhere. The doctors had disappeared... Ben wanted to beg them to stay, but it was not in his nature. After all, they could not help him more than they had done in healing his body, at least. Perhaps they stood some chance of staying safe if they were kept away from himself and Vysera. Perhaps that nurse could live. Perhaps she could still help somehow from a distance, if she carried out his order. Ben’s thoughts were disrupted as Vys was upon him in an instant, as she lifted his hand, forcing his touch along her face.

"You look.... So well!" His coloring had improved over the last several days, his form looked less... Suppressed. Less gaunt. More like his usual self. Which was just as well.

There it was: that excitement. It was almost youthful, summoning a past that Ben was not prepared to remember, given the circumstances of the present. She did appear more austere, however, as if the First Order had taken her among their number...

Her own attire was... Modified. Pieces of First Order uniforms that had been altered. She looked... Sharp and wicked all at once. Powerful and yet... Pristine. A far cry from her usual chaotic displays. She even pulled her hair back into a severe style rather than her beloved braids.

Ben’s eyes were wide. The First Order could not accept her! How could they let this happen?! Ben was at least relieved to find that he was refreshed. He was even surprised to see his skin was more coloured in comparison to the grey state in which he had entered. Even something he thought had been lost was slowly beginning to return: hope was not gone, and Anakin had reminded him of the price of compassion, - that Ben still possessed it, somewhere.

"I had your clothing sent for laundering. And... Incidentally, repair." She beamed, gesturing to a bundle of dark clothing. "You must look like your usual magnificent self, Ben." She instructed. 

Magnificent. He might have laughed bitterly, if it weren't for the fact he could not bring himself to even laugh at all. Perhaps he was once magnificent, or perhaps he only believed himself to be. Once, perhaps, he thought himself powerful; one of the most powerful in the galaxy. Once, perhaps, he thought himself to be strong, and brave, righteous and capable and... free. His wings of midnight would dance behind his shadowed form, as the winds of foolish ambition caught upon them as it did on his ragged, youthful locks of dark hair. Something inside of him in that moment longed again for a time when he dared to think so much of himself, but this was the temptation of strength through the pain of others as well as his own. He had made a solemn vow only moments ago to his ancestor that he would not return there. His eyes followed her gesture to the black bundle. She had prepared everything. For what, damn it?! What did she intend?! He was almost certain that whatever it was, he could not stop it. She must have planned every loophole, been ready for any attempts he might make. Yet a different freedom was so, SO agonisingly close... Ben valued liberty greatly. The very notion of it had helped him commit the murders of his masters, set fire to the temple in which he used to live, run from it and even consider freeing himself from his father’s guidance too, only to realise that it would not be freedom he felt, but loss.

She got to her feet, collecting it from the table. She couldn't help herself. She settled the clothes on his lap. She was impatient, struggling with her urges. She was as they had once been: full of eagerness and mischief all at once - like the night she had led him to the shore of the lake and convinced him to go swimming. A night when the air had been so hot, that they all sweltered in the humidity and while the other padawans were willing to resign themselves to a fate of tossing and turning all night - she had devised a plan that left them both laughing on the bank, cool from the drying water of their swim and gazing up at the stars together.

Impatience. Her excitement had only grown. Oh force... what had she done in his absence? Did some terrible surprise wait for him outside the doors of this medical wing? Too much like his surfacing from the crash... he half expected to turn to the side and see his mother dead in a chair again. Despite the miraculous change of his health, Ben still felt that familiar sickness at the mere thought.

"Get changed! Hurry now!" She urged. She would not allow him to protest. There was a tension building in her limbs. She could not see, of course, the sweat clinging to his limbs - drenching him from his nightmares. She only saw that his vitality was more or less restored and that brought her a satisfaction that she could scarcely define.

If she had no patience to begin with, Ben was not about to test her. Reluctant and heavy as he was, he doubted a change in attire would do much to either further or halt whatever her plan was. Admittedly, he also did not desire to be exposed for any longer period of time than he had been already.

~

The parade grounds were immaculate, the First Order regalia hung from the walls, crimson blooms had been affixed to the balcony upon which they stood. For all intents and purposes, it looked like perfection - fitting for the Supreme Leader and a formal visit. Were it not for a few troopers pacing the parapets with their plasma rifles trained on the troops below - it might pass for an ordinary presentation. That, and the order of the troops below was... Erratic at best, but for the neat rows of five by five squared units along the far wall.

Ben was under her careful watch as she led him onward by his arm, up to the balcony. He was sure he had come here to deliver a speech before. The grounds were decked in red and black. A presentation display, quite immaculate. Had she arranged it this way? Was this why she had brought him here? Did she want him to speak her words to his... to Hux’s army? 

He hadn't seriously considered Vys as the next leader of the First Order. The idea made his blood run cold. If this woman didn't just rule him... If she truly ruled galaxies as she had promised... then it would not be just himself and Rey that he could fear for, but he would also fear for the greater good of the stars themselves. Ben might not be his mother, but he remembered what it was she loved and stood for. She loved her people: families, children, young soldiers, old bearers of wisdom. She loved hope and she and Han had always valued freedom as much as, if not more, than Ben had. Even Hux, with his casual sadism and insatiable greed, would make a better ruler of the galaxy than Vysera, of this, Ben had no doubt.

Morran hung back out of the view of the troops below. His eyes hardened as he spotted Ben, his arm occupied by Vysera's. An ugly jealousy burst through his chest like shrapnel from an explosion. He craved her, needed her... He wanted to feel her hands upon his body - those talons hers dragging down his back! He made a whimpering sound as she drew closer.

As the two of them reached the upper floor, Ben was stunned to see the Commandant- Commandant Morran, fix him with a sour look that was somehow not naturally formed. Ben’s first instinct was to address him. Ben believed him at least to be a man who would follow the interests of the Order... at least, he thought so, until he noticed that sickness... his bloodless, ashen skin, the bones starting to protrude from underneath. Then there was that bestial, heated need when he set his eyes upon Vys that made Ben shudder. Her personal brand of chaos and desire seeping like acid into the cracks of the Order. Ben didn't need to speculate too much as to what kinds of acts she had performed on the Commandant, but did find himself wondering if she had done, and would continue to perform, these same heathen acts upon others - turning them, with Ben, under her control. To say the idea shocked him was an understatement. It wasn't that he didn't think her capable, it was the picture of the cold shell of every man and woman broken open and stuffed with a new brand of fear and darkness altogether.

"Kneel..." Vysera purred good naturedly to Morran as they approached, she was well aware of his change in attitude. The lapdog thinks he has teeth? She would have laughed aloud but there was no need to push a man who was already flailing on a cliff's edge. The hostility brewing as he laid eyes upon Ben. Yet, even so, he kneeled, his hand reaching for her as she passed, his hand trailing wistfully down the curve of her hip as if to plead her not to forget him. But she stood beside the Supreme Leader... What chance did he have? He dropped his gaze to the floor, unable to look at them together. What did he do wrong? Why?

Ben was struck by the hostility with which Morran eyed him, even as he complied, before Ben realised that it was because he could see... it was obvious by the way she held Ben’s arm... that she held Ben preciously. It was jealousy in the Commandant’s expression?! Oh Force... How far had she pushed him?! Would he ever return from this state…? Ben drew his eyes away, irrationally fearing what he might see from the Commandant next. Ben knew Morran. Morran would never... yet he had been made shameless. Utterly shameless. Vys had made his will as thin as paper.

As they stood above the troopers, Vys removed her arm from Ben. Ben stilled. Her non-existent look was ice, crawling over his limbs. Was this how Rey felt on Takodana? Had it been years now, since he had frozen her there? His limbs refused him. He watched with rising dread. The time... for whatever she was to do was close. He could feel that much. She took her place before the crowd. Ben tried to summon something of a strength to show the soldiers, but it was a lie. He knew their fates. Was this... he thought he could see their projections on a screen. Recorded?! It was being recorded?! Then... then Hux would see this after all?

"Soldiers of the First Order!" She called, her voice amplified by the small mic she wore pinned to the high collar of her shirt. The troopers all turned to face her, stiff in the posturing of attention.

Ben watched her command them. Had she prepared this too? It certainly seemed like it. Ben was oddly reminded of Hux’s presentation when Rey’s squadron first joined the Ordinance. Suddenly the humiliation and anger of that moment seemed so small in comparison to whatever chill Vys had cast over them all. Ben noticed the troopers on the barracks. Rifles in hand. This... this was her plan. Her plan in action.

"That is what some of you are. Loyal, dedicated... Believing of a cause far greater and larger than yourselves!" She addressed them, sweeping her arm to gesture at them all.

Ben stared at her. Where was this going? He wanted to stop her. To end whatever this deranged show might be before it could even begin. It was when he tried to take a step that he realised she had truly tied him there, after all.

"The others are filthy traitors. Following an illegitimate self-proclaimed usurper! He does not sit on The Ordinance as a loyal servant to your TRUE SUPREME LEADER!" She screamed, arm raised to gesture at Ben beside her. The troops below shifted, they could feel something. Biologically it was impossible for them to be impervious to the thickening of the air - her presence was filling the voids between the flow of the Force. They could feel it, like livestock growing restless as the hounds are released to herd them.

VYS! Ben wanted to call out, but his lips too, were sealed shut. Damn it, what was she doing?! Commanding these armies... she could not just... assume power like that! Yet it was combined with an odd awareness of what her intention was. She was boosting him over Hux, putting him on a pedestal of power. Ben prayed that this was all she would do, but he already knew that she had not even touched the surface.

"Yet all of you... Loyalists and traitors alike are guilty... Those of you who are loyal to the Supreme Leader but have not yet risen against the bastard Emperor have followed his orders. Traitors and loyalists together you are witness to a historical day.... The First Order revives its Inquisitional forces and I am the first." She declared, lips curving into a smile that all could see projected onto the large screen. Recorded... Yet not ready for transmission... Not yet…

She was energetic, charismatic. A speaker even more chilling than even Hux. She was dividing them. Ben pushed, his limbs felt like immovable stone. If he could just take one step... he could feel the tension rising, heating his blood.

"Already I have been hard at work in the service of the Supreme Leader. Already you stand, ready to face your punishment... I know what is in your minds... In your hearts..." The fear rising from the parade ground was nearly palpable. Thick in the air as each one was plunged into doubt and mistrust. Who were the traitors? Who were the loyalists?

Vysera lifted her arms, she could feel them as the Force guided her to each life form below her.

Ben couldn't do so much as shake his head. Don't do it... DON’T!!! whatever it was she was going to do to those who followed Hux... this was not what he wanted!! He didn't choose this! He managed to take one step forward, though it strained him.

"You cannot hide what is written in your soul! The Inquisitor sees all! It will be you who carries a message to your false emperor! You will make him see!" She bellowed. She turned her head towards Ben, bowing her head for a moment. She simultaneously re-fixed her hold, freezing him again. Like the grip of that terrible cloud. He was bound once more. Don't do this Vys... A message to the Emperor? He would get the message indeed, but never in the way that Ben had hoped for or suspected.

When she turned back to the assembled troopers below, the packed dirt beneath their feet had begun to darken. She was expending an awful lot of power. Truth be told, she wasn't sure if she could do it... Until she held each of their lives in her hands. Her fingers moved and they moved - breathing her breath, obeying her thoughts.

The full scale of this plan hit Ben as his eyes darted over the troops. Livestock to be slaughtered. The crowd below them were her puppets. Once again Ben was struck dumb by her power. She couldn't... Surely there was no way to control them all... That was impossible…

His thoughts were proven wrong. He reached out to the force and recoiled. It was thick... It was seething. The very winds began to sink in temperature. He could feel Vysera's concentration and knew already: it had begun. He struggled. His power was nothing... Just as he had felt before. Helpless, rooted to the ground. Alone, despite being watched by hundreds... even thousands?

Trooper turned to fellow trooper - they were stripping off pieces of armor, heedless of where the pieces of snowy white plating fell. A distorted pantomime of her desperate desire for the man who stood beside her. It was not so hard to project onto their impressionable minds aspects of her own will. The flight suits beneath followed. Behind them, Morran groaned, leaning against the door frame, gripping it hard as he watched her demonstrate her power.... He longed for it to brush over him again! To taste that power as it surged over his body!

Her presence was overwhelming. Ben could feel it: a frenzy of red-hot passion. An electric, somehow ear-splitting hum erupting from her grand pose. Could she really penetrate the minds of them all? Ben was pale again with fear so quickly. He could only stare as the armoured suits fell apart to become bodies of bared flesh. Ben heard Morran moan in ecstasy from somewhere behind him and he felt increasingly ill. This... This was wrong... It was grotesque…

That was when they began to submit to instinct. Their minds stolen, sucked away by her, they leaped upon each other. Ben struggled further, but were he freed, what would he do? He could do nothing. It was his powerlessness above all that made him mad. Even from a distance, from above, he felt as though he were in the very midst of their savagery. Tongues, teeth, fingers, nails, the bodies entwining in a rampant carnal need. Was it their choice? Was this what the First Order’s suppression had made of them which Vys had unveiled? Or was it the mind of Vysera herself, breathing within their skin while the weaker were preyed on and the stronger devoured? Ben tried to gasp. His limbs shook subtly from the effort he was using up in an attempt to be free from her chains.

It was chaos below - they fell upon each other. Ravenous beasts caught in the grips of wild passion. Those who cast their allegiance to the 'emperor'.... It was subtle, -the change of their actions from pleasure to that of violence, but the sounds of their captive throats did not shift. Trapped in her sway - their minds had been carried away to an artificial nirvana while she twisted them and controlled them, like puppets on strings. Powerless against her, unknowing of their own demise. Gouging, ripping, tearing and punching! Driven to murderous acts. One by one, their bodies began to fall - their blood soaking into the turf.

The air grew even thicker. More humid. Ben could feel the Force around them was as black as ash. He looked down, and observed a carnage begin to break forth from the crowd as if their pleasure had mounted into an utterly different activity yet with similar movements, still scrambling and clawing and moaning and shrieking. A writhing, diseased mass. These were soldiers... how could Ben have stopped this? All this, committed in his name. Even from the balcony he could see the spillage of blood on soil, dyeing the ground in pools of red. They used their bare hands, some of them still clinging onto a kind of life before it was torn from them. There were so many. Ben wanted to pull his eyes away but he wasn't able. There was no justice in this. This was a mass murder, all in one foul swoop. He thought he could take no more. The remaining... the living... they saluted to him. This was her plan. Purely fear and destruction and chaos in his name. Not his name. Hers. He could see the letters be formed by the crawling carcasses of those dismembered men and women, hanging on by threads.

Please... stop this. This was not his name. He had wanted to bring a kind of good to the Order during his reign, not dictate it through terror.

Their earlier chaotic formation now is transformed into order. She had not spoken lies when she said that they would be a message... Their corpses had become letters... A grotesque heap - hundreds of soldiers and officers alike. Soldiers and officers no longer. Wasted flesh. Food for the carrion birds that would come in the following days - drawn by the smell of corpus meat in the hot sun. There could be no confusion now. Those loyal to Ben stared, horrified and intrigued. They turned as one - free from Vysera's grip and saluted him - SUPREME LEADER!!!

Vys herself looked more pale. A little drawn as she lowered her hands.

"You who serve your true master.... Will send this message to the imposter.... He will know that his time is drawing to a close. When it is time - you will rise up and honor your Supreme Leader!!!!!" Her voice was clear, passionate. It resonated within their chests. She turned to Ben. She bowed her head to him. She will help him take back this throne... But it will not come without a price.

He felt the unseen grip on him slacken. He stole a final glance at that obscene parade. A mockery of restraint. A display created for himself. She thought it his gift. She appealed to his darkness. The darkness was everywhere, he could feel it everywhere, like the ocean he knew had turned as viscous as oil, and threatened to leak and sink his raft, for it to clog up his lungs until he might not breathe again. He remembered his dream. Do not give into this. Hold on... to... to something. The way she watched him... even without her eyes. It was only then that he comprehended the words, the twisted letters of corpses spelling three, short words:

_ALL_

_HAIL_

_REN_


	7. Chapter 7

Vys could feel him straining at the edges of her control during the presentation. He wanted her to stop. But when such a great wheel had been turned to motion, one could not simply make it halt. She had to do this... This plan must run its course. She had to make Ben see. She was on his side. As she always had been. For none other would she have taken up arms against her fellow brothers and sisters... Fellow padawans, the ones who refused to follow Ben… And if she had seen Luke that night, she would have struck him down for Ben, too...

How could she do anything less for him now? His enemies were her own, even if he refused to properly acknowledge them as such. She perceived Hux to be a threat. Not one that could not be vanquished, of course, he was only human, after all... Yet why should she not enjoy the path to his demise? It was bloody work. There should be a reward.

She had to make that liar on his stolen throne feel... Shake with terror. She would dismantle his followers. Tear away their order. Strip them down bare as she would do to him... She would make a mockery of his precious desire... To control. His ardent passion for such things as order and discipline had been abundantly clear in Morran's recollection of his broadcasts. Hux's need for order was an affront to her nature. Chaos, alone was the natural order of things. It was in her. It was in Ben... Even, she suspected, in Rey. Yet he... A miserable insensitive sought to control it all. The hubris! A provocations she could not leave unanswered. A provocation that Ben ought not to have been able to tolerate, either.

Ben turned away. He could not be seen by anyone for any longer. He fled into the shadows, bringing his fingers to his lips as if it could help to block what he wanted to scream. Vysera had paled. Her sacrifice. She had built him up. She tried to make this… his… He had turned, moving away from the balcony. Just as well. She didn't think she could keep him so perfectly restricted even though the recording had been stopped just after she bowed to him. She was feeling... Taxed. She, too, swept from the balcony, nearly closing Morran's leg in the door that she closed behind her, he curled into himself, still leaning back against the door, watching her with hungry, pleading eyes. She paid him no heed, her focus was fixed on Ben.

She could feel the turmoil within him. His revulsion.

“It is not in my name.” Ben gasped in a whisper. He tried not to weep. “This is not mine...” He pressed himself to the wall. He wanted to be swallowed by it, into the shadows where he should belong. What if Rey saw it? She would never see him. She would never forgive him for this... dreadful insanity.

He didn't want this... would the blood that had been spilled in his name ever be cleaned? Then it would never be his name again. If this was sent to Hux… Vysera sighed, exasperated as she moved to the desk, Morran's desk, and perched herself on its edge. Its surface was still swept clear from the last time she had been here with him. His willing frame sprawled beneath her own. 

"Denial does not suit you." She said, crossing her arms. So weak. Simpering like a beaten dog. She could feel her blood heat. Not with desire. But with anger. How much did she need to do? How long could he reject the reality she was spelling out for him?

“This is not in my name!” Ben repeated. Louder this time, finding an odd unknown strength and anger in what could never be found again. He still had compassion... so long as he was guilty...

Oh Force... what had she done? He stared at her, emptily. Did she think he would approve? He was speechless. He was... the was rage there. It had not all been drained. That much gave him comfort. Yet he could not fight her... he shook nevertheless. What did she THINK would happen?! That he would come running into her arms? That he was as deranged and frustrated as Morran was and would be driven into a state of lust by this repulsive presentation of her strength? No. No... it only scared him more. He could only imagine the trauma of those troops. He knew what it was like for her to enter into his mind. He knew she could devour him as the soldiers had devoured each other, and for them, he had realised that an element of his anger remained, even if it wasn't enough. Ben pulled his palms to his eyes, his eyelids tightly shut to barricade any tears. He wanted to tear away the scene from his memory. How he wished he had not been here to watch it! He would see it forever in his nightmares. He did not bother to ask why she had done this. He knew the answer already. There was only one plea he might make.

Louder. As if volume could make it true. She shook her head.

"It's ALL for you... It always has been." She felt like a broken holo-cord, repeating the same loop. "The day you accept it... Is the day that all these sacrifices cease to be in vain." He was angry. Shocked. He hadn't been able to comprehend the things she'd learned... Not until now. And it scared him. Scared him! Her display had been nothing short of exemplary - awe inspiring. The terror induced was to be for Hux and all those who dared to follow him after seeing what awaited them if they did not bend the knee to the true Supreme Leader...

“Stop this.” Ben begged with an odd strength gained from his new health, raising his face from his hands to fix her with the wells of his eyes.

She couldn't. Even if she wanted to. The power she wielded demands a payment. A price. She shakes her head gently, a small, sad smile that only curves one side of her lips upwards. Morran had finally peeled himself away from the floor, crawling towards her on his hands and knees... He was no fool. He would take what she offered if the Supreme Leader was to reject all that she offered... He needed it... He could not live without... She lifted her foot, planting her boot on his shoulder to halt his progress, paying him no more mind than an errant puppy. He whined softly, hands moving to caress her leather clad calves, pressing greedy, desperate kisses along the tops of her boot.

“Stop doing this... if you want to hurt people,” he swallowed down his childish fears. “Hurt me...” he did not move his eyes from her.

Her lips part. Taken aback. She was disgusted. Hurt people? People! She snorted. These were not PEOPLE! Anyone who... Her lips twisted into a snarl, she jerked her leg out of Morran's grasp, kicking the side of his head with just enough force to make him sit back, on his knees. She got to her feet and his expression changed to one of hopefulness. They were animals... Less than animals... She moved the toe of her boot to the apex of his thighs. She had felt his ecstasy along with Ben's growing disbelief during her display. She applied pressure, nearly enough to make him squirm in pain alongside his delight. She withdrew her foot, the evidence of his spent pleasure had soaked through his trousers at the pressure. She pushed him back roughly with another kick to his shoulder. He lay back, panting shallow breaths, preparing for more. More that would not come. Not at the present at least.

She lifted a hand to gesture at his prone form, as if to demonstrate her point. These were not people! They were tightly wound mechanisms. Easy to break. Yet he would have them preserved? He would let one just as weak and needful as Morran rule his.. BEN'S... Hers... THEIR GALAXY?

For Rey, he could not ask her to kill him instead of others, but if it meant he could keep her from the world for as long as he might be able… 

“S-Stay with me.” Ben dared to implore her. Maybe this was what he was supposed to do. Maybe this is how he might pay for his mistakes, how he might keep a worse danger to the galaxy from blossoming fully... if he tried hard enough. She softened, following the sound of his voice, stepping over Morran as if he was nothing more than a crumb upon the carpets. How sweet these words sounded upon his lips....

“Stay.” He enforced, “and do your will...” he blinked. He should not hesitate. She would notice. “To me.” He finished. He could not go back on his word now. He could only hope she would take what he presented, and that it would distract her.

She lifted her hand to the side of his face, the pad of her thumb trailing over his lower lip.

"I don't want to hurt you, Ben..." She whispered. "But I will stay with you." She assured, lifting her head - if she'd eyes, they would have risen to meet his own. He raised his chin, closing his eyes as he felt her cold aura approaching him. He was ready. She could do as she wished. He had begged her to. He couldn't go back on it now. No, he would suffer. He would suffer and save them... his heart bounded against the cage of his chest as he felt her hand meet his face. Her thumb brushed his lip, and he held his breath. Yes: let the pain come. Let her skin him, or make love to him. So long as she and the galaxy, and Rey, were kept separate, Ben would be satisfied. Something on his tongue turned sour. Her touch was one of gentleness. He knew, even before she said it, that she had seen straight through him- reading him over like a synopsis.

No...she would not submit to the bait, to the prize he had presented her with. She knew his truth. Her promising to stay was his only comfort. If he gave himself to her, at least she would be his from a different perspective. He would aim to occupy her every day and night if it meant she would not touch the galaxy again…

"It just won't be here... Hux will not be able to let this go and we will not wait for him to bring the weight of his traitorous army here to try to exact revenge." She drew a deep breath, stepping away from him. How foolish Ben was to think she would ever let go of what she had begun. She was not pure desire and instinct- she was driven and would follow through, regardless of the havoc she would wreak. 

Where would they go next? He didn't want to go back to that ship... to that place of death and darkness and ash. He was healed, yet he had been ill inside those same walls in the bright electric lights and the abyss of space for far too long. He assumed she had a strategy... perhaps to repeat these attacks on multiple stations. Would Ben be present for all of them? She would soon steal everything from him: his name, his body, his control...

"My will is what is best for you. Even if you do not see it, yet. When we move against The Ordinance..." She considered her words carefully. "You will be permitted time with your prize." Rey. Perhaps what he needed was the opportunity to get her out of his system. He may tire of the flavor of this particular fruit once he had devoured it. And then... She would consume what was left. 

Ben couldn't help himself. He stared at her. He had misheard. Her. Surely he had misheard, or he was dreaming... wishing for it far too much. Losing his mind. Permitted? Permitted TIME?! How it tormented him that he did not know her exact intent! How much time?! What would happen to her after? It had to be a lie, and yet she had presented him with his every waking wish... how could he not long desperately to hang on her words, to balance on her tightrope, to believe her? He would spend the next months trying to draft in his mind his apology to her, his warning to her... unless it would be better not to let her be seen at all. Of course it was better that way. Ben was doomed to watch her die otherwise- what a fool he was being! A fool for hope’s sake.

She was an expert in weaving her web of lies for a fly like himself to be trapped in. He imagined her eyeless sockets under the blindfold. He had stared at them for too long when they were visible. He could imagine them as two large pools, so deep that if he were to swim down to the bottom, he would not find how to reach air again. Rey... why must she know of the perfect weapon to use against him? He caught himself thinking that he should wish to have never have fallen in love. He was too selfish for that. Such a wish was a lie. A filthy, diseased lie caused by Vysera’s influence. He did not wish it. He only wished she were protected. If she was not destroyed already... Vysera would do it...

No. If Ben had to be torn to shreds, if he had to be drained utterly, if he had to be chained in a cell for all of time, or for his every bone in his body to systematically be broken, he wouldn't hesitate, so long as Rey was safe. He would do all, suffer all to ensure it. It would be easier for Vys to give him complete pain rather than the twisted and withered love she possessed. Ben could withstand torture. Yet he could not withstand another's love. Why was that?

It didn't matter. He was failing. She would seek out Rey. She would accomplish their takeover... or their acts of terror with strategy. Ben thought of how unprepared the resistance seemed to be before their throats had been cut and hearts stopped. Would Hux be the same? Would he be unwittingly the next body? What would happen to the death on that ship? What would Ben have to give Vys to be finally allowed to give them a proper burial. He owed them that much, and the smell of dead flesh truly made his skin crawl. He would follow her lead and depending on where she would take him, he would not give up in trying to hold her entire attention. She was not a woman to be easily distracted... but Ben had to believe he could still attempt it.

She drew a deep breath, releasing it in a sigh.

"Your heart beats so much louder when you think of her." She muttered, unable to hide her irritation at the fact. Still, she supposes, it's part of his allure. So warm and alive. His heart like an electric wire buried into her senses as though it'd been shoved deep, burrowed beneath her skin. Painful but it makes her... Feel. He was in so many ways, even sapped of his strength and on the upward curve of his recovery - so... Alive. It called to her, that yawning abyss, that hungry thing... Craving him more than ever.


	8. Chapter 8

She was not a proud creature. Her pride and a great deal of her self worth had been sacrificed long ago... She'd left it crawling on the floor to give herself to a task to keep Snoke’s withered, malformed fingers from the flesh of a woman she had once regarded as a sister. Rin would never have been able to endure what she had... She had learned a lot about boundaries, then. How, after long enough, everything becomes normal. Routine. And if the only way to have Ben was to keep him captive, for his dreams to be of another, then so be it.

His resolve would have to wane... She told herself that she was infinite, but deep down, she knew it was not the case. Either he would break, or she would. It would be so much better for him if it was not her that reached the end of her tether, before he found the end of his own.

The war was simply a pleasant backdrop to her agenda. A light distraction to help her patience stabilize. What care did she have for a man-made construct of power and control when she knew what true power was? When she already served the universe's true ruler: chaos? And chaos would bring balance back to the galaxy, in due course. It was wild and ravenous - it would not remain submissive to a weakling in pretty white robes who thrives on restrictions and discipline. Chaos was an unstoppable force, the building wave of a tsunami and it would not be stopped. To try, is merely to delay the inevitable. She is the inevitable.

The First Order is just a pile of kindling. Neatly stacked. But parched. Dry and brittle. It only needs a small spark to set it alight and with the sending of this transmission, she supposed she had thrown a torch atop the heap. It was a thrilling prospect, indeed. A civil war. A kingdom ripping itself apart from the inside... She had no real desire to fight a war. She was not a soldier. She was an assassin, after all.

She glanced over her shoulder with a small sigh.

"Morran! Up!" She beckoned, waving her hand. "Come!" It was clear that they were going to leave.

A stop at the medical wing, first. To collect all but a few medical supplies. There were some small protests but Vysera was quick to shut them down.

"Need them?" She perked an eyebrow. "They'll be wasted here. If that insect doesn't have this place in the sights of a trans-orbital assault immediately after seeing this message... Well, he's an even bigger fool than I imagined. Get them loaded onto our craft immediately."

They looked at her, to Ben, and then back. Awaiting directives, no doubt.

"I suppose you should evacuate. Go to another outpost and spread the word..." She added as an afterthought. It was hardly her concern. They would do as they must. This war would fight itself with minimal intervention on her behalf. They were greeted by neat lines of the surviving troopers and personnel that were loyal to their Supreme Leader. They stood silent, saluting as the band of three passed before them, stepping carefully over the fallen corpses in the courtyard.

Back to the ship. She was getting sick of it. There had been no convenient time to ditch it with her constant tie to Ben, trying to keep him out of the hands of death and feverish delirium. The stench of death greeted them as the loading ramp lowered. Even her nose wrinkled in disgust. It wasn't until they were drifting through the stars that she went to seek out Ben. She found him in that room... That... Room where she had found him hanging... She shuddered at the memories. She had allowed herself to be vulnerable before him and things.... Things had gotten out of hand so quickly. Her head tilted down to her arm, she smoothed her palm down the grooves and peaks of the runes carved into her flesh and shuddered. The saving grace, of course, was that Ben was not aware of the limitations of such a feat. In that... She could not simply open herself and let that creeping darkness escape whenever she pleased. Each time, it would grow harder to control, harder to return back within herself...The consequences for allowing it to roam free were not ones that she wished to discover.

He didn't want to go back. He knew it what it would mean: trapped like a rat in a hole, surrounded by the unbearable stench of his dead mother and brethren. Morran joined their progress as they made preparations to leave. Ben dreaded him following them. He dreaded watching Vys use him for a footrest or a dog. The inhumanity of it... not to mention the officer’s personal vendetta against Ben for Vys’ attraction to him. The door slid open for them. A gaping mouth. Ready to swallow them. He had to be pulled by the arm, escorted by her onboard. His feet dragging. An abyss, until the sterile lights flickered to life. He could smell it, even from the outside. He had to hold his breath upon entering. He retreated to the site of where he had dwelled for so long, his mind still tortured by the images of squirming, bloodied bodies spelling out his old name. He stood there, leaning on the walls for support. The stench was indescribable. He wished he could stop all his senses, just to block it all out.

"We're going to have to do something about the..." She didn't need to say it, not really. It was so blatantly obvious. She leaned against the door frame, arms crossing. She wished he hadn't tried to hide them. Moving a bloated corpse was hardly an easy task at the best of times, let alone if they were shoved into compartments or dropped behind pipes, prone to burst like overripe fruit with a result about a million times less pleasant. But she'd done her dash with such things, that would be his burden to bear. Perhaps Morran could assist him. If she told him to, she had no doubt that he would consume the necrotic corpus meat.

Ben turned to face her. She's stood at the door frame. In a way, he appreciated her not spelling out the obvious. So even she found it a misery? What could make revulsion herself feel disgust? What could make depression and death herself feel lifeless? Ben gazed at her, absently.

"I'll let you choose a location." She mused aloud. Probably somewhere sentimental. The thought was enough to make her wish she had eyes, if only to roll them. But, she supposed that creatures of his ilk had their needs. The others maybe he wouldn't care, but his mother at least, she suspected, he would have a place thought out. 

Ben’s eyes widened. Could she be so...? Kind was the wrong word, yet she would grant him such a kindness? If it meant that they could both be free from the thick and rank air... He began to think over the homes of his childhood. Would she let him return there?

"But first..." She moved to stand before him. "Show me." She tilted her chin upwards, as if in challenge. "Show me how much you'd like to lay them to rest."  
He felt her move. She was coming closer. His back was still pressed to the wall. He should have known... there would be a price. Fool! He was not prepared. He wouldn't look at her again.

Ben’s heart lodged in his throat. It made him want to gag, to vomit his heart out of his body and never feel it inside of him again. Her price, her suggestion... there was a time, not long ago, when he would never have even considered it, but the smell, the thought that she would reject his wish, wouldn’t allow their rest, have her way with them, let them rot in the ship, shred them to pieces, or leave their carcasses floating in space, or set them aflame with her fire... The very thought of her even touching them made him sick, far sicker than the prospect of what he might have to do for her in this moment.

He wished he could have known... that his mother, that the resistance would forgive him for what he was about to do. They wouldn't. They could never forgive him. Ben had led them to their deaths, as it was. He tried to picture them: their faces and voices, - trying to comfort himself and persuade himself that it was for them.

It hurt too much. They were, each of them, the threads that held him together, that he had taken for granted until they had come apart. His father first, his mother... even Luke, for whom he had once been consumed with hate. Those fighters, still so young, so rash, so much like himself, if they hadn't been on opposite sides. Sides? There were no sides. Not anymore. Only love and loss and pain and survival.

He finally lifted his face to her. He must. He must do it. For their sakes, but also for his own. Where was Morran? No doubt lingering... watching. It only made the moment feel more like a lit fuse... but he had to. He couldn't go back now.

He reached his hand to her face and tried to stop it trembling. He wished that he could find the desperate need she gave him, when she pushed him to the brink. He was starved, after all, of any comfort, - of any touch that wasn't the icy hand manipulating the force to freeze him solid. If he could only summon that desire, that need again… but he couldn't do it. The ship reeked of their flesh. He couldn't find the desire, the hunger... but he wouldn't need to, if he could only bear to make himself numb and quiet.

He pulled his fingers into the thickness of her hair. Made a silent plea for Rey’s forgiveness, for his family’s forgiveness and tried to ignore the feeling of being watched by her drained dog, before he settled his lips on hers.

She stood there for a few moments, while he tried to collect himself. It felt like an eternity. If she were a softer woman, she might have been hurt for how much it seemed to take out of him, - simply to prepare himself to touch her. Was she that vile? Perhaps, so. She tried to harden herself. Tell herself that his wishes or wants were the least of her concerns. This was owed to her. The hand raised to the side of her face shook with a fine tremor. It wasn't need or desire. She could feel as much. A sense of dread. Revulsion. It was too much for him. He wouldn't be able to do it...

She was about to pull away when his hand slipped to her hair. She froze. Her breathing becoming very shallow as she hesitated. In another second, his lips found hers. She could almost feel the stiffness in his lips, the tension in his body as though he barely managed to control the bile from rising. This...

He was grateful, relieved, not to taste their blood, as he had done the last time he had submitted to her wish. He had promised himself not to be taken by her again... but that was for his sake, not theirs. He would do it again, he would do more. He had not sacrificed enough for them. Vys was wrong when he had first met her again, when they danced and she believed his pride to be gone. His pride hadn't gone. Not all of it. Not all of his dignity. Yet for them, it was the least he could do, - to give up pride. Give up his dignity, perhaps not forever. Perhaps he could regain it... or perhaps that was just the false hope that he could believe, to keep his sanity.

He pulled closer, his tongue exploring her mouth. He was quick. He couldn't bring himself to linger, but he still tasted her. He tried to forget... it was her. That it was her body. He could manage, believing it a woman’s body, just not HER body... not after what she'd done. Her skin was so cold. Even after the life she had stolen from him, she was still as cold as death. His hand, the one not woven in her hair, reached along her arm, his fingers brushed the scarring, the language in blood. In her grip... that ashen cloud... In the room where the rope of clothes had cut off his airflow...

He pulled away, gasping for breath. He shuddered, his thudding heart beginning to sink like a stone, cast into cold waters. It would be harder than he anticipated... but he couldn't give up. She was about to make a smart comment. That, for how convincing his efforts were not - the bodies could turn to putrefied liquid that they could simply hose out at the next spaceport. She could hear his heartbeat, the struggling gulp... So repugnant... She drew a deep breath, taking a step to his side when his hands found her upper arms, gripping tight. Her brow furrowing in question, lips parting in surprise - surely not... He wouldn't be... But he did.

He had moved closer, his lips parting, his tongue moving swiftly through her mouth, - as though she were a bitter pill to be tasted and swallowed quickly. Sooner it was over, the better, - she could read the sentiment in his touch... though he made himself touch her again, his free hand reaching for her arm. She couldn't help the needy sound born deep in her throat and given life on her parted lips, as his fingers moved along her scars. A reaction that Morran hadn't been able to create in her. Perhaps it was because of what he was. Easily broken and with no will of his own once she pushed hers down upon him. Or more simply and more likely... Because she didn't care about Morran. Whereas, Ben…

It was too much. Too soon. He pulled away, taking the warmth of his proximity with him as he stood, gasping for air. Her head tilted down to her bared arms, thumb smoothing over the thickened scar tissue. She would never be free of them.... The scars. They weren't simply a cut made once and deeply. It was not something she could write on her flesh. She had to brand it into her soul. Cut down to the bone. Speak the words until she could hear them echo in her mind, her heart. Until another voice answered from the depths of her soul. How strong must a lock on the door be? Stronger.... Stronger... She remembered the agony that had come of it. Knives bathed in blood then put into the fire, heated until they glowed and then sunk into her flesh until she was quivering the corner. Stripped bare and soaked in sweat. Fever had gripped her, whispered madness in her ear, set her body on fire with infection. Red fingers reaching, straining to reach her heart... It was a miracle that she'd even survived. A damned fucking miracle. One that it seemed he would never appreciate.

He gulped down his regret, he stifled his trembling. Be brave, Ben. She’s his old friend, he shouldn't be afraid, why was he afraid? It began to frustrate him. Ben grasped her again by her upper arms, rougher this time, reminded of what it felt to swallow the food she had given him despite his protests. He would do it, damn him! He would finish it! He crashed his lips on hers once more. He began to feel an odd and terrifying illusion of power in doing so. It was sick of him... it was sadistic, but she had wanted him to act, and act he would. Was his need, his desperation returning? It was painful,- twenty times more difficult than if she had just taken him over, himself lying stilly as her living corpse to play with and yet, he was the dominant creature, stealing her chilling flesh into his sharp heat, the points of his teeth and nails. He found where her neck met her shoulder, pulling the tender and malleable skin between his lips, he bit her, imagining drawing the blood from her. If he tasted HER blood for once. Not the blood of innocents. The scrambling figures from the courtyard, devouring each other equally in lust and rage flashed by his mind’s eye, and once more, he was repulsed.

His smothered her lips with his own. She gasped, shivering as his fingers tightened, the points of his nails digging into her flesh, his lips merciless against her own. The tension slipped out of her body, melding to his far larger frame, her breathing growing ragged with pleasure. Her hands resting on his broad shoulders. It was almost believable, she could almost convince herself that it was real. His lips had moved to her neck, his teeth finding the sensitive flesh there and pulling it between them, dragging a soft hiss of pain from her lips. Thought bled from her mind, her senses lost in the sensations he created on her flesh. None could do this, she believed, make her feel as he did...

He gasped again, as if he had been stung by her, he pushed himself away. His heart was speeding more than ever. His eyes were watering, but he wouldn't cry. Not now. He glared at her, suddenly consumed by his familiar smouldering disgust and boiling anger. He trembled, but not with fear. Was she contented?! Just how much would he have to lose?! How much did she need?!

It was over too soon. He pulled away from her abruptly. She could feel his emotions surging back. The rage. Disgust. Hatred.... That was the one that stung the most. He stood apart from her, his pulse was frantic. She cleared her throat, straightening her posture as she tried to collect herself. His heat... Had felt nearly enough to melt the glacier within... But he'd taken it away. A small part of her hated herself. Not for her weakness, how easily her body responded to his touch, how desperately she wanted him - that was understandable, she loved him. But, instead, hated herself for how she was obtaining it. He did not wish to give it and yet she was taking it anyway... Holding....

She turned away, her hand gripping her arm, sharp fingernails digging into her flesh between the points of the runes. Until five small crescents of blood formed at the points of her talon-like fingertips. Punishment. She was only making him hate her more. Had she gone too far? Could he ever come back to a point where the mere sight of her did not set him on edge and have him gagging with the feeling of utter abhorrence? And if he didn't.... Could she ever accept that? Or would she cave to her basest of instincts and take from him anyway?

"Tell me the coordinates by mealtime." She whispered, unable to face him. She pushed past him and out the door, closing it in her wake. Morran was in the hallway. She could feel the simmering rage in his demeanor. She had injected herself into his veins like poison. She could feel him rotting away. A monster, just like her. But unlike her, he lacked the strength to take what he wanted. If he tried to steal a kiss from her, she would rend his face from his skull. She paused, head tilting as she regarded him, searching him with an intensity that made his pulse race. She advanced on him, ruthlessly pinning him to the wall, her knee wedged between his thighs with enough force to nearly cause him pain rather than the thrill of excitement that shot through him. Hopeful. Lusting for her. She could feel these feelings rising to the surface but it was that little onyx thread she'd spied earlier that had drawn her closer. She pushed her face close to his, inhaling sharply.

"If you touch him, Morran... Even once...." She burrowed her fingertip up under the hem of his shirt, dragging it lightly up the smooth flesh of his stomach. "I will break open each of your ribs until your heart is laid bare to me and I shall take immense pleasure in watching you gag upon it." She pulled away from him, stalking out of the narrow hall.

She made her way to the cargo hold. The ship reeked. She was eager to be rid of it, truth be told. She rifled through the contents of the med-crates, finding what she was looking for, she pulled them free and laid them out. Now... She had to try to think like Ben... Where had he hidden them? Originally, she had intended to make him contend with the consequences of his actions. But... She found the first, carefully placed behind the coolant pipes. She was careful not to touch him - the pilot. She used the Force to keep the remains contained in the fragile flesh. Laying it down onto the body bag, zipping it up. It would help manage the smell, if only... marginally. This, is the reason she told herself that she'd done it. Not because she felt guilty for what she'd made him do... Not because the thought of herself made her own skin crawl... Not because she'd had a taste of what his passion could be and it left her feeling more starved than ever...

By the time she had finished, there were four bags full, laying neatly along the wall near the loading ramp. She had returned to the small mess area, preparing food. Would he come out to eat? She didn't want to have to force him again... But now that his health was more or less returned, she had no desire to see it slip once more.


	9. Chapter 9

Before she left him, there was something that he did not recognise in how she held herself, in the tilt of her non-existent eyes. He wasn't foolish enough to believe it to be shame. She would surprise him constantly, like an ever-changing current, she would sweep him from his feet and throw him to the harsh, molten sands, taking him off-balance with a simple look, or a spoken word. His defences raised, he was prepared for her attack, for her demanding a higher price that he was not prepared to pay, even for the burial of these noble souls. The burial of his mother. He knew that she could take anything she wanted from him, but that he could no longer be forced or coerced, in this moment, to give anything else away to her through his will.

It was with an immense relief that he noticed that difference in her demeanour. The difference he did not recognise. She had turned away. She would not face him. Ben’s thudding heart, running at a frantic pace that had prepared for a fight or a torture, was instead greeted with an empty space. Soothing silence. The irregular rhythm in his heart slowed as the organ began to sink in his chest. She wouldn't ask for nor take another thing from him. She had grown somehow thinner and transparent. Shame. Yes, as strange as it seemed, he was sure it was shame. He knew shame well, and Vys, of all people, was cast into it’s sickly hues. She asked that he give her the coordinates and left without another word.

Ben was heavy. He stood still, watching her until she had left.

He brought himself to his knees. So often he was on his knees. Perhaps because he was too heavy to hold himself on his two feet, or perhaps he believed if he made himself as low as he felt, he might, to some extent, be stripped of the sins of pride he used to possess. Where had she gone? Ben couldn't escape the twinge- the doubt. What was the right path anymore? He couldn't escape that she was another victim of his arrogance. She was not entirely as he had thought he'd known.

His mind began to drift in the following silence. The blood-curdling stench of death... Ben knew already where he wished to bury his mother- but the others? What right did Ben have to decide their place of burial? Well. Better him than Vysera. Oh why... why had she killed them? They had done nothing... nothing in their existences to warrant so brutal an end. Was it not the same with the villages Ben had massacred? Was he so quick to forget them when faced with Vysera’s terrors? What kind of hypocrite was he?

Every time Ben believed the wound of his grief to be healed, it split open, -just as sore, just as deep as when he had first noticed it on waking. Such a fool to believe that an escape to the light could possibly help him, or her. Or Rey. Ben drew his palms and fingers over his face. Would he ever forget?

Not if Vys didn't want him to.

He began to think over his recurring dream. The house of his early years. Model spacecrafts. A red and blue carpet. Had he dreamt of this time for a reason? He couldn’t help but consider if the dream had come to him as a sign that he should bury them there. On Chandrila.

It took him a long while, curled up once more before he could finally find the will to lift himself from that ball of desperation and silence to find them. He knew where he had hidden them as well as recognising his own face in the mirror. The crannies and crooks, the shadows of where he had attempted and failed to bury his heart. He assumed the stench would be worse as he neared the coolant pipes to find...

Nothing.

Ben stared. He was certain. There was no doubt in his mind. Ben had laid Poe here. He had laid him here, heavy in his hands, Ben had dragged him here to this place. This place, now empty. Empty?!

He trembled, his hands making fists. Just as he had a hope that she had... that there was more to Vys than his unending torment and a devil, she had proved him wrong all over again and here he was, standing frozen and clueless and helpless as she so often left him. There was another emotion. One to convince him that he had not been drained utterly, or that he had somewhat recovered. To call him enraged... it wouldn’t begin to describe...

How DARE she LAY A HAND ON THEM!

Ben’s eyes bulged. He threw his fist against the wall, feeling the vibrations ripple up his arm. Where were they?! He nevertheless did not scream. He did not let his lust for destruction move further from his attack on that wall with his knuckles. He was hanging by a thread as it was... He did not want to think of what Vys would do... no! It wasn't himself he feared for. He searched for the others. Increasing his speed with every step. Feeling oddly strong, he didn't tear despite feeling as if he had been torn into fragments, each fragment of himself lying by a body that surely she had stolen and done some horrendous act to, all because he could not find himself capable of delivering a grotesque lie to her. He jogged onward, almost slipping until he set his eyes on the loading ramp... the wall. Four body bags.

His fingers shook. He came to kneel next to them. Finding the zip, aware that he would have to hold his breath to avoid the smell, and in holding it, perhaps he could additionally hold himself together in the process, or so he hoped. He pulled heavily on the zip to see...

The mangled features of... the girl. Finn’s... his lover, or his friend Ben didn’t want to assume which. The skin under her eyes was thin and... starting to peel. Ben shielded her away. He didn't have the strength to look at the others. What if Leia’s face was now only feet away from his own? He turned away, with great difficulty, as if he were half-drowned in thick mud.

He could smell food amongst the dreadful remaining stink of the rotten and half-decomposed. He followed it to the mess area, where, sure enough, she was waiting. Ben’s heavy breathing surely betrayed him. She could read him utterly, even without a pair of eyes. He took in another breath. He couldn’t look at her. Why had she... He was so convinced... it was such an opportunity for her to hurt him and yet she hadn’t taken it. He longed for the truth: was he right to condemn her? Or should he hold hope? She had promised to set him free from hope…

~

Morran followed her like a lost shadow. Did he belong to her? He could no longer recall a time where she had not been in his life. She filled such a cavernous place in his mind. In his chest. Did she create him? Is she god? His mind is a heaving morass of devotion and need. Such a need that he is afraid... So afraid can never be filled. A gnawing, consuming hunger and there... There is not enough of her! She showers affection upon... That beastly thing! She gives away everything he craves. What he NEEDS! He wanted to rage, to scream, to cast her elegant limbs in the cage of his hands. He wanted all of her... NEEDED all of her.... A small whine escapes his lips, watching her.

His brown eyes trail her every movement. It's bothersome. She turned towards him. The dour downward curve of her lips left him no wiggle room in his assessment. She was displeased. He dropped to his knees, proffering his hands to her.

"Please..." He begs. She has shown him only threats, reassuring him only of his death at her hands if he dares to touch that... His rival. Competition he has been forbidden to strike down. He gulps, shuffling closer and her frown only deepens.

"You can eat what he does not." She muttered, crossing her arms. But it doesn't take much intellect to understand that he begs for something else. His dark eyes are not fixed on the food she has laid out on the small table. She licks the front of her teeth, fighting to keep blatant disgust off her face.

"I..." She lifted a hand to cut him off. Shaking her head she moves to stand before him, finger catching under his chin as she tilted his face upwards towards her own.

"You have an important mission, soldier. The most important, in fact..." Her words trail off, head tilting upwards, scenting the air. She releases her grip on his chin, ignoring the mewling sound of protest as he catches himself on his palms. He looked over his shoulder, not surprised to see that brute's large form filling the doorframe.

She listened intently, her ears straining to take in the sounds, his footsteps halted. Heavy breathing. Upset. His heartbeat gives him away. Had he been for a tour of the ship, then?  
Hardly the grateful response he ought to wear. Her hand moves to settle on her hip, expectant. Her lips pressing into a grim line. Shall he scold her? She waited, barbs on her tongue ready for a childish assault.

“... you’re really going to let me bury them.” Ben murmured. It was a question in disguise. Would she be offended if she knew he had thought her to have gone back on her word when he noticed they were gone? He took in yet another breath, his shoulders hunching. How long had they been together? It felt like an eternity already. How long had Rey... been with Hux?

"Yes." She can detect his disbelief. Or is it... caution? Does he think she will retract her word? Deny him his prize after he had given her what she asked for? NO! That is not... She has never betrayed her word to him! How DARE he?

"I certainly won't be doing it. I hope you're ready to roll up your sleeves." There's a sharp edge to her voice. He hunched his shoulders, drawing another breath.

“Chandrila.” Ben finally whispered. “I want... them to be buried... on Chandrila.”

Of course. She should have guessed. The planet of his birth. Leia... It was her turn to draw a steadying breath. She had never gotten to go there. Leia never came for her son. All they knew was that Temple. And their dangerous trek to Snoke and... All that came after. She never saw his origins... Regret nips at her heels. Something she cannot allow. She swallows, jerking her chin towards the table.

"Eat up. Then you may go set the course." She had never been to his home.. Would it remain? The place where he had been grown into a child from a swaddling? She drew near to him, slow steps, as if she thought he might bolt like a startled animal. She lifted her arms, as if to draw him into a comforting embrace. She hesitates... She grit her teeth, dropping her arms. No. He will not seek her comfort. What she offers to him will not be a salve to the pain she has caused. A necessary evil.

If she didn't break it, carve away at his strength and whittle him down... Would he even stay? Or would he simply flee, running back to be in the arms of that child? Soft petaled, innocent little rosebud…

She approached, and Ben automatically found himself returning to the state of numbness he has grown so used to- awaiting her encircling arms, but she didn’t give it to him. He wasn't sure why that hurt. Why he... he seemed to need it. It’s not her he needed, he reminded himself. Just an embrace. Still, he was grateful for the distance. His mind wasn’t focused on her anymore, or the drooling man that followed her. He thought only of a time before he’d even met her. The memories were strangely restoring. Something to hold on to. His heart lifted for the first time in what felt like months at the thought of going back there, of finally burying them. Finally being at peace. No, not peace... just... an absence of the smell of death. Fresh air. His old home. Some blessed quiet, for however long Vys will allow.

Once again, he forced himself to eat. He hated it. Even pleasant food turned to ash in his mouth. He felt full again after only a few mouthfuls. He hated himself- his body was no exception. One large, stretched, hunched spider connected by lumps of flesh. What did Vys see in that? What did Rey? Ironically, the more he thought of how he had been admired in his past, the more it added to his disgust. He tried to turn his thoughts away from it. Just the action of shovelling more and more down his throat until his stomach seemed to bloat and he gratefully finished. He didn’t say a word, but simply and eagerly moved to set the course, the ship taking a new direction, he came to the screen of the window at the cockpit... he was aware that she might have been watching, though he wasn’t sure what funny business he could realistically try. He knew her power well enough by this point. If he tried to deceive her, he, Rey, or thousands of people could pay the price. He didn’t want to question if he was becoming used to her control. If he had lost the will to fight... The windows kept him breathing. It felt less like a tin can when he looked out of the windows. The stars flying by...

He felt a sudden drowsiness as he sat there, moving only on occasion for near hours. He thought he could hear Morran prowling behind him. Vys giving him whispers. Ben shivered at what she might have been telling him. He realised he had not properly slept in a long time. He was reluctant, yet for the first time in a long while, he came to the bed instead of the floor to sleep. If he didn’t learn... or at least attempt to forgive himself... He was aware that when he would wake, the guilt would return worse than ever for when he had to bury them, but he wasn’t ready for it now. He let his eyes fall shut on the bedding that felt too soft for him- like floating on a cloud.

He was awoken by a slowing of movement... her hand coming to his shoulder. He flinched at the touch, coming to sit bolt upright before her. While sleeping, he was almost carried away by the bliss of unconsciousness. He was almost made to believe... that he wasn’t in that ship, with her, anymore. Upon waking and understanding that nothing had changed... that he was still her prisoner... the bed he was sleeping in was still in a ship that reeked of corpses... Ben blinked down the small, wet glaze over his eyes. He was sure that Vys had been offended by his fear of her when he awoke. She still thought... still believed they could be...

Ben removed himself from the bed and turned his back to her. She made a sound between a growl and a sigh.

“We’re here.” She snarled stiffly, before marching away on her heels.

How long had Ben slept for? He rubbed his eyes. He still felt heavy, even after feeling like he had slept for a thousand years. Still, they were finally there... He felt suspended... as if this could also be a dream from which he would wake. Did his old home really lie outside the door of this ship? When was the last time he had seen this place? He must have been only ten years of age... before he had rejected the past. Before he was taken away and forbidden to return except for rare occasions when he was foolish and arrogant enough to reject the opportunity. To cast away his precious home as trash. His precious childhood as a waste. He tried to prepare himself for what he would see. Would it be how he remembered? Like in his dream? It was more fortunate for Vys, perhaps, that his family home was in a quieter space of the country, away from the city, the republic, the state... A place where a senator and smuggler could attempt to quietly to raise a son.

Ben could feel the landing, lowering... the slight stomach lurch as they came to ground. He swallowed. Was it time? He could hear the humming of door opening already. Feel the wind again... his eyes falling shut just for a moment. Just to savour the feeling... then there was the whirring- the lowering of the ramp. He finally pulled his feet to the entrance. The light somehow flooding his eyes. He squinted and blinked. Turned to the awaiting body bags…

It would be better to get it over with. Despite his longing to explore his old home...

The bodies had to at least be pulled from the ship. He used the force. No need to make it harder for himself... he no longer wanted to touch them... to hold them. Their lives had long gone and left empty homes, empty vessels. He was slow and careful. Coming down the ramp before setting them in a row on the wet, muddied grass.

Finally, he looked around him. The sound of wind chimes wept upon the air. Ben felt like the chimes were calling his name. Repeating it over and over in the same jangling notes for eternity, with the whispers of rattling leaves and the low mournful crying of the wind itself. Autumn must have come to the planet. The house, surrounded and isolated by trees, was cast in the angry and jealous shades of the sun; scarlet, salmon, sepia and a burning saffron. Framed and caught in the claws of dark mahogany branches. Long shadows were cast over the ground like watching ghosts. In this way, it was not how he remembered. He remembered the blushing canopies in Autumn as joyous and inviting. He would want to collect the leaves and bring them inside. Show them... show them to his mother. As if they had an immeasurable price like gemstones. As if they were something precious that someone of her royal status would actually desire. She had played along. A bright smile. A warm fire. A ruffling of his hair... The sound of the chimes was coming from the porch, outside the door of the small, humble house. A bench sat upon the boards of the porch.

Ben couldn't resist any longer. Despite having a job to do... he had to... that bench was where Chewie used to sit. The Wookiee playing with him as a boy... He used to make Ben laugh, especially when Ben used to bury him with cushions and pillows while he was sleeping, only for him to leap upward with a roar and chase the mischievous child all around the house while Ben laughed and laughed, melodically, his feet flying up the stairs. Han helping Ben to learn Chewie’s language... on that very bench. Ben traced the damp wood with his fingertips. He came to the front door. Another memory: Han fixing the hinges. Ben and Leia watching from the inside, Ben being small enough for Leia to still pick him up in her arms and rock him like a baby. The feeling of her embrace. Ben expected he would have to force the door to open, but... but it was already ajar. His brow furrowed. He was sure Vys was watching. She might even have been behind him, but he couldn't care, nor turn back. He’s too taken in by it. Absorbed in this other world. The world of his intimate past. A past he had actively tried to forget, and yet was never able to.

How was the door already open? He stood there for a moment, before he came to open it fully and ventured into the doorway. Perhaps the place was robbed. Or perhaps... it was so quickly abandoned that they didn’t even bother to lock the door. He supposed he would never know. Crinkled leaves like brown edges of scrunched up paper rolled senselessly across the inside of the floor. The house was so quiet that only a ceaseless wind made a sound within it. A sad, never ending song. It was somehow grey in there. Ben remembered it, dreamt it, as being full of warmth and colour and the smell... that smell... of Alderan recipes. No such smell existed there in the present. He sighed softly, almost silently, coming across the floor, down through the empty rooms, taking in the faded colours of the walls. Why, of all things, should he despair about wall colours? He shook his head, coming to the kitchen, his boot crunched on something... an old broken bottle of whiskey. Han... Ben stepped away quickly. It was like his ghost was still there. Waiting. The old kitchen was in disarray. It looked like... Ben could almost see the scene in his mind’s eye: a fight between his parents. A bad one. One so bad that... perhaps that was when they...

His heart sank.

When they finally split. He could picture Leia shouting, crying at the sink. Han throwing down his bottle... distraught, at the news that their son... was seemingly dead and gone. Replaced with a raging, metal monster who had done away with their love like it was a disease. The two storming out of this house. Han would have flown away with Chewbacca at his side in an instant. Seeking comfort from wild adventures among the stars and far from the fear that had always come from family. Responsibility... being afraid of his own son...

Ben tried not to tear. He just stared. Emptily. He had hoped it would be better than this... that some flicker of warmth from this home would still remain... That Ben, in his foolishness, had not destroyed it all...

Surely... he wanted to beg whatever, whoever might be listening... Surely there had been a reason why he had dreamt of this place as a place of love to which he should return? He came up the slowly creaking stairs. Finding his old room. The blue and red carpet. Model spacecrafts. The window. The blind. The wardrobe. The lamplights... it was all immaculate. Ben was shocked. This was the only room that hadn’t changed at all. Not in the slightest. Exactly like his dream. A soft stream of sunlight filtered into the space. Ben couldn’t stop himself. He found his own bed. Lying in it. Far too large for it. He lay there, closing his eyes and trying to imagine...

A long pang... a lingering sting across his heart. His watered eyes... he tried to suppress it. He thought once that he was strong... but he wasn’t. He had been weak for so long. So vulnerable. In some ways, not changed from that boy that once inhabited the room in the slightest. His height, however, meant that his head nearly touched the ceiling. It was surreal... squeezed too small. A room for some... tiny soul that he might not have held onto. His hand reached to a draw. Sure enough... it was still there. A small journal with a crimson cover. He opened it. One the first pages was a scribbled interpretation of a spaceship. The second was of his mother in crayons, with an inflated head, twirls on either side of her ears and a large curve of a smile. Ben couldn't look at it for long... he felt as if he might explode. Then a few blank pages followed until... Ben saw a monster. A monster with holes in his wrinkled flesh and large circles for eyes... Ben slammed the journal shut. His breaths somehow heavy. He brought his hands to his eyes. Listened to the silence. His hands were wet with tears before he pulled them away. He couldn’t stay forever. He grew colder. He grew stiff, his jaw setting. He had to get to work…


	10. Chapter 10

The trip was largely uneventful, if Vys had to describe it. And she had to do something to pass the time...

Morran creeping, always never far from hand. Ben was asleep, so... She drug Morran to her bed, laying him out - his chest rising and falling with anticipation as she moved to sit on his stomach, just out of reach of his aching appendage that she had no desire to feel harden beneath her.

She sneered down at him, disgusted. She could hit him and he'd find pleasure in it... Sick... Weak.... She ran a sharp nail down his face, a diagonal motion, a vicious slash. He moaned, lips parting as he tipped his head back. At this angle... She caught his chin, seeming to examine him with her tilted head in spite of her lack of eyes, as she turned his head this way and that. His dark hair... Her nose wrinkled. Ugh... A sad substitute. One she would not avail herself of any further. Not in the sense he whines and pleads for... She connects the line to one she makes on his neck, ripping his shirt open and he makes a sound... One she knew. She had no desire to feel that particular dampness seeping through his pants.

She traces another line, splitting flesh across his chest and he's panting, begging for more... Later, perhaps... She admired her handiwork, finger tracing the lines.... She would have used Ben's saber, except she needs this scar to look... Mended. Smaller... Not so fresh.

"Tell me Morran..."

"A-anything..." His hips jerk behind her, desperate for the weight of her body to be upon him, lower...

"So kind of you to offer." There's a hint of sarcasm, the suggestion that he wouldn't have had a choice in the matter, not as her fingers slip to his temples and she brutalizes his mind once more - mining his memories, searching for key points of interest. He groans and wheezes beneath her touch, his back arching... It's with some satisfaction that she notes it is not entirely with pleasure. Not the fine sweat she feels slick the skin beneath her fingertips... Ahhh.... This is where what is left of Morran resides. His feeble, proud protest. She crushes it, raking and ripping... She takes and takes... Nav points, locations... codes... Names. Faces.... All of them will be important in the coming days...

She leaves him trembling, twitching in her wake. Little more than a simpleton. The mental capabilities, perhaps of a child. Or a pup. He no longer looks at her with a lustful gaze. The man he was, is destroyed. Both the Commandant and that sniveling rot he became after. She feels no guilt about it, not as she creeps from her room to go investigate the cockpit that Ben had left earlier in search of slumber. She settles into the chair, propping her crossed ankles up on the edge of the console, twisting the chair from side to side. She has a plan now...

What started as a... Whim... A chance to create some chaos and mischief now seems... Worth pursuing. If not for entertainment factors alone... She wonders if their video has made it to the false Emperor by now. Surely it must have... What was his retaliation? Surely someone as brash as he...

Her contemplation was interrupted by the beeping and flashing lights of the instrumentation. Proximity alerts... Ben has programmed their course well. A pilot worthy of his lineage. She makes her way to tell him that they have arrived. Hardly a moment that turns for pleasantry. He turns his back to her and she leaves, feeling irrationally insulted. She's allowing him a rather generous... Peace offering, here. The reward for his forced interactions didn't NEED to be so grand....

While he disembarks, offloads the bodies, she makes her rounds, collecting Morran from her room. His excitement is somewhat vague, content to hold her hand as he examines their surrounds as if he's never seen them before.

Her journey to disembarking was far slower. Morran, paused asking incessantly what almost every little thing is.... An interesting development... Truth be told, she'd never ravaged someone's minds with as much ruthlessness as she had done to him. It had interesting implications. Worth exploring further.

She was certain of victory. No mere human man, no matter the height of his ambition and arrogance, would ever defeat the last remaining Rens. How delightful, how amusing a thought, to lay hands on Hux and leave him as a gibbering wreck on a fancy chair for all remaining Emperor following fools to see! Thoughts for later... She had to pull Morran back from wandering into one of the side compartments by the scruff of his collar.

Perhaps it is better Ben moved on ahead. She didn't know if she was ready for him to see this little mess she had made. Not that he'll have much to say about it. Probably give her a scornful look he thinks she can't see but she certain feels it... When he looks at her, thinks about her in disgust. Not as a friend or a lover. An enemy, a horror. Time will change that. At least she hopes so. 

But what if it doesn't? Will she have to carve him out and leave him a husk? How would that possibly satisfy her? She doesn't want him to be meek and submissive, a blank paper! No. She wants his fight. His anger, his heat... And he is already so fragile, teetering on the brink. His spirit seems to shrink more and more each day. It's a fragile line she must balance upon. Push too far and he'll be broken and lamed like Morran. Stoke the flames too high and he may find it in himself to break free. But for now, she is confident that he is securely in her grasp.

By the time she has managed to grab a fully charged datapad and drug Morran from the ship - Ben stands at the door of his old home. She feels ill at ease, moving with sharp small movements as a bird. She detects something... Something that prevents her from making her way up the steps, steps she sees only because she has assumed control of Morran's eyes. Chimes, tingling a melody. A ward. She feels... Feels so strongly the imprint of the family that lived here. Leia's loving presence, even Han, untouched by the Force has left a print here. Solid. Somewhere she hears the echo of a child's laugh. Ben, she can only assume, as a child. When he had smiled, when he had been light and small.

It makes her hurt. Ache. In her bones. Is it the Light? Love? Things that she is not? She shouldn't be frightened of ghosts, of the past that lingers foolishly because it is too ignorant to know that its time has passed. She refuses to believe it could be guilt. She feels him push through the door and she growls softly, wishing she had never let this come to be. She closes her connection to Morran's sight. She should never have let them come here. Not wanting to know, now, where he came from. Something about him being a child, the innocence... It's not... It's not who he is! It's not who he was meant to be!

"Come, Morran...." She pats the side of her leg - since she had released him, she could feel him wandering. Hear the rustle of leaves under his step. At her prompting he came stumbling back. Had he forgotten how to use his body? Perhaps so. She stands at the edge of the yard, skin still crawling...

"Let's go for a walk." She states. More to herself than to the bumbling man beside her. She gets the impression he really doesn't understand her a majority of the time, now. Fair enough... She's used him for all but one of her remaining needs and that is only a matter of time.

This planet is strange. Quiet. It's strange that such a place could escape the notice of the hungry eye of the First Order. But it is sufficient for ample contemplation. She reviews the downloaded data banks on the pad. A tedious task, using Morran's eyes to do it. He could never read it aloud to her now. Maybe she had scraped him clean for his memories too soon. Still, she'd never had this happen before. It was a learning experience for all involved.

She makes a small lap of the property before returning to the yard. She orders Morran to sit, settling herself in his lap and made him stare over her shoulder so she can continue to read in peace, using him as a seat to keep her own attire from getting sodden in the mud - she doesn't want to make her way up to the porch. To that husk of a furry creature's imprint... She wonders briefly, noting locations of certain fortresses on the screen, if the wookie still lives?

The day feels older.... Perhaps it is a drop in temperature as though the sun has begun to fade or maybe she is simply imagining it. It's not long, however, until she is settled that she realizes the steady thump she hears is not Morran's heart. But is in fact a shovel. Ben, digging the graves. Good.

She lifts her head. A flashing beacon on her screen. A priority one broadcast... This should be fun, she thinks, pushing back on Morran until she is laying atop of him, her back to his chest and her legs wedged between his so she doesn't not roll off. She holds the datapad, using his eyes to observe the Emperor's address.

An interesting start. It's not long before she begins to break down his motions. His palms on the table. Pacing. His voice raising. Has she rattled him already? He's certainly angry. His voice raises loud and across the sound of the shovel biting into the turf, even on the datapad's small speakers - his rage makes her chuckle softly. The empty chair he hurls.

"That must have been your seat..." She murmurs to Morran who may possibly be almost asleep in spite of the way she compels him to keep his eyes open. A menial task, one she realizes means that she needs to make him blink every so often. It's strange, to have eyes. To think about using them after so long of not having her own...

He goes off on a tangent... Foul blood? She realizes she may have inadvertently struck a nerve with her previous video... She makes a note to ask Ben after the broadcast is over... She wriggles, making herself more comfortable as the video spans ever onwards. Such an impassioned speaker! He declares any supporters or anyone with the name of Ren an enemy of his stolen empire...

Oooh... She raises the pad. Scavenger girl. Interesting that she is included in the mentions of his speech. Another piece she can push across the board. Fight fire with fire... An idea blossoms in her head and she finds herself grinning widely. His grit. To be so bold! His insults, calling her Ben's whore, his slut... Hardly. But that is fine, in time she will make him regret such words.

He ends with a rousing call to arms, in a sense. Compelling his fellow mundane man to rise up and to fight. To not be puppets and slaves... Slaves! She's almost rolling with laughter by the time the feed is cut. No doubt, that same stuffy boardroom will be full of tactical wheedling after such a video. Counter attacks, no doubt. Plans. She scrolls through other, older notices - the planet they had been visiting, where she plucked Morran from, has indeed, been destroyed. Not entirely vaporized but she suspects it will be some time before it is inhabitable... Interesting.

"Ben.... Is Hux truly a bastard?" She shuffles, sitting up - ignoring the wheeze of the man's chest she sits on.

"How goes the digging? How many have you dug?"


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains: Many "..."s xD

The tip of a shovel. Then the entirety of the metal crammed into an unwilling earth. He dug. Plunging that fierce metal into soft, dark earth. It was odd; feeling nothing again. Despair was absent from his work. The simple, yet strenuous action must have been helping him. He could believe in the midst of his repetitive push and pull, the scatter of dirt, the crisp air, the wet warmth beginning to leak under his arms, around his back and upon his forehead, that he was not… that it was not graves he was digging. That it could be anything else. Gardening. An exercise. A simple spending of his energy on something mundane. 

He hadn't made too good a job of it. The first seemed too small. He worked to make it wider. The damp soil slid and slumped back into the hole. This… all of this... seemed to take eternity. Paradoxically… that gave him relief. He would be content to never move from this place. He came to dig the next. The first, small one, he decided, would belong to the smallest of them: the girl. It was only logical for Finn to be next. He couldn't think in those terms. These were not graves… not for people. Just ditches. Empty holes in the lawn of his old home. 

Another yet to be done… then… 

Ben had to stop for a moment. He drew his arm over his brow. Closed his eyes… just for a moment he could take in a breath…

He hadn't realised just how covered in soil… he was showered, head to foot in it. He… oddly liked it. No expectation. Just him… the dirt… and…

Vys was watching something. He couldn't care to listen, perhaps because he dreaded what he might hear. He could nevertheless… deduce Hux's shrill shouting... Vys used her corrupted footsoldier for a seat. Ben drew his eyes from her. He didn't even desire to watch her reactions, though he could tell without observing that she was finding it highly amusing. It, of course, unnerved him. He didn't want to live in reality… why should he? When he could simply dig? But then… of course… she pulled him back. Reminded him of what this all could have meant...

He dropped the spade at her question. Hux… How did he respond to Vysera's message? Her massacre? Ben didn't know how to answer Vysera’s question. He would be giving her ammunition. He didn't want her to get power. Hux, Ben knew, was evil… but Vys? And to give her a further to use against him? Ben shouldn't care… yet…

It didn't matter what he might have said. If he lied, she would discover it, he had no doubt. 

“Yes.” Ben finally admitted in a low voice. “He…” Ben swallowed hard. “He is…” 

He shouldn't say anything else. He shouldn't mention… Brendol Hux. Or he really would be… he doesn't like Vys’ question. 

“Why… do you ask?” Ben dared to respond.

It was a stupid question. Why else?! So she could hurt him. The thought of him made Ben sick with a poisonous mixture of emotion and pain. His hold over Rey, even then… Ben wanted him to die. Still wanted it… He shouldn't have thought anything else of it. 

At her next question, Ben looked down on the graves. Blackened pits. Long worms and woodlice slithered and struggled over each other. Like the bodies of the Stormtroopers Vys manipulated. Ben could feel bile again for having such a thought. He looked away from them.

“Three and a half.” He told her… his voice cold.

Her tone was far too cheerful for him. Was this… just a fun day trip to her? Had she no thought to what might be sacred?! None at all?! He was too tired to be angry.

He sighed. Plunging the spade back into the yielding earth. 

This was not a funeral, Ben thought, that should suffice. These Resistance men and women were… they were heroes. Not dogs to be buried in a yard. They should be mourned by the entire Galaxy. His mother should be beheld by all who loved her… before she had become a stinking...sack of flesh! She should have been mourned by all… her memory shared. Her friends united… 

The dead… are simply dead, he tried to remind himself. What's the point…? 

He kicked his own spade, lifting mud-stained hands to his unwilling eyes. 

What's… the point? 

"Hurry it up. You have one more to dig." She says, leaning back against Morran.

Next to Finn...

Poe... 

Now he's digging for Leia but she said... 

He wipes his eyes with his arm and counts them. She... she's asked him to dig one more but...

There'd be an extra one.

He turns to face her. A moment of silence. His eyes welling with tears. He hardly knows what to say... so he keeps digging. He doesn't try excuses. He doesn't try to... appeal to her. 

She'll never let him see Rey again. He feels like he's swallowed burning coals, as he tries not to cry. 

His father should have been buried next to his mother...

He carries on, nonetheless. 

He hasn't been enough. Vysera has grown weary of him. He won't... yield so... so he has to...

He spends some time, digging his own grave. He tries to make it long enough... close to his mother's...

He supposes he entered the world because of her... and he might leave it next to her. 

When he finishes... he wishes he couldn't tell her, but he knows she'd hear the ceasing of his work. He stares down at these pits in the earth, his chest shuddering... the shovel hanging loosely, in his hand.

He asks Rey for forgiveness... again, his head hanging. He hears the whistling of the wind. That hollow calling... 

Everything suspended.

Leia's finished. Vysera stands, tossing the datapad down on Morran who grunts softly. 

She strolls by the lines. She can sense the voids in the ground. The last. Ben stands near it. She comes to his side. Such a strange practice. To bury the dead. What little she remembers of her youth - the grimy streets, the dark tunnels and dripping pipes... Ash. The dead were burned. It seems less pretentious than marking the earth. Scoring out little slots in which to put vacant bodies. Setting markers above them - a proud declaration 'I was Here' 

 

He's staring out. His last view of this world. He tries to remember it: the open space... will be so different to the pitch of the earth. His breaths shake. All these leaves in the wind... his earthly eyes watch the trees, he gives a last look to his old family home, his dark eyes releasing tears over his cheeks. He takes a long, deep breath. He's shamed by how frightened he is. He thought he was ready... to die.

 

"Well done." She murmurs, grabbing his arm suddenly and gives him a shove.

He half turns, to look at her, but then he's slipping, he stumbles down, down, into the darkness... and a whimper tumbles out from him. It feels... 

He can imagine the dirt filling his mouth and his eyes... the worms in his skull... he feels so cold! He tries to stand, his legs shaking... 

"V..." 

He doesn't want her name to be his last word.

He sits on his knees in the hole, his head bent to the ground, whispering prayers... pleas of forgiveness, his tears watering the soil.

She crouches, gathering a handful of dirt before tossing it in atop of him. Poor Ben. She can feel his misery. She slips down into the grave along side him - she pushes him back. A playful action as she clambers atop of him - not dissimilar to the past. Their training. The old ways. She grips his wrists, dragging them up above his head. 

"Why are you so sad, Ben Solo?" She murmurs, softly. "Poor darling..." her hand slips from his wrist, down his arm, up to his cheek.

The first mud... it breaks over his back. He sobs aloud, his legs scrambling away. He could try one last time to fight it...

He can't. She's too... her power is...

He shakes his head, his stomach twisting. He feels her, slipping inside in the grave. He curls up, trying to turn away... but she pushes him, he's on his back. He closes his eyes, twisting away, he feels the weight of her, climbing his body.

"N...n..." he wants to scream, but he can't even speak. 

Defile him... before he's left to die...

If she can't make him yield she might as well...

His tone grows desperate. 

"No..." 

He tries to squirm away, from under her, but she's anchored his wrists...

 

He hisses at her, though the tears are continuous, down his face. He shivers as she touches him, his face turning from her fingertips.

"Get... off... me..." he snarls... but the snarl is soft... and weak. He wriggles under her - trying to fight or escape. He can't. She is his destiny. There for his beginning... Kylo Ren... And she will be here for his end. 

He hisses at her, his tears wet her fingertips, she traces idle paths, brushing them away. He turns away from her. Her expression, what is exposed below the blindfold, is serene. 

"You're no fun. This galaxy has wrung you dry..." She says softly, saddened.

Fun...? 

He glares at her... aghast. 

"Fun..." he repeats, disbelieving. He squirms again. The need to strike her... he just wants to hit her!

No. He can't. She... he's hurt her too, in his way. He needs to pay her with his suffering. He understands... that... but selfishness... dignity... and his love for Rey makes him resist.

"You think we're having fun?" He repeats, his voice is thick. "This galaxy turned you..." 

He doesn't know what it's turned her... but it's... wrong.

"I'm having fun." She comments conversationally, sitting up, drawing her hands away from him. "With an old friend. Only he's too absorbed with himself to join in." Her voice turns dour.

"Fun and games for you?" He growls. "Tell me..." his eyes narrow. "What was more fun?" His hands dig into the dirt. "Slaughtering the resistance? Taking me against my will? Or making a crowd massacre and rape itself?" 

His voice is bitter... his dark eyes searching his features.

"Or is this part the most fun of all?" He questions. "Pampering me for what comes next?" He spits out the last word... but the thickness of his voice betrays how pathetic he is... how he's wracked with his emotions.

"Definitely the last one. Imagine the look on that weasel's face... Well. You won't have to imagine..." She leans down suddenly, her thumbs pressing against his eyelids. "You have certain luxuries you take for granted..." It's tempting... To take them... Those ridiculous brown eyes. The eyes she fell in love with... 

His chest heaves as she presses down... the tears that still rim his lashes...

What will she do? Will she remove his eyes, too? His lower lip trembles. 

"Those people died... so you could frighten Hux?" She looks genuinely confused. 

"They died because they support your enemy." She stays sternly. "Doesn't mean it can't be entertaining." 

"It was horrible..." he murmurs. Those men and women died... for a joke…

"It was necessary. It was a message!" She hisses. Always SO ungrateful! 

One written with his name... the slaughter with his name... 

"What comes next, Ben?" She whispers, her lips skimming across the skin of his cheek. She wants him to say it?! He can't. He tries to turn away again as her lips brush his cheek.  
He begins to doubt... which makes it all so much more torturous. Not knowing... 

He shakes his head. He refuses to say it. She feels him shake his head at the last. 

"What do you want... to happen?" She tries again, her voice is a low purr, lips closer to his ear.

Her lips... closer to his ear... he sighs. A long, tired sound.

"Just... stop." He pleads her. Predictable. She scowls. 

Nothing he says will be what she wants to hear. They are NOT... doing... doing anything! Let alone in a... GRAVE! His grave! 

His hand lands on her chest.

"Get... off..." his voice is dark now. 

He's had enough. He pushes her, trying to force her away. With a snarl, she gets to her feet. 

"Give me a lift." She demands.

He crawls away from her. 

He wants to ask why he should. Is it the difference between a slower or a quicker death? 

"No." He bites back. Just to anger her.

She can use that ash... if she wants. Whatever she does... he'll endure it until he's allowed to die.

 

She turns. She hisses at him. 

"Now, Ben." She snaps her fingers, pointing to the space beside her. Speaking as if to a misbehaving hound.

"Or maybe you'll be in the crowd the next time." She growls. "Maybe you'll help."

He closes his eyes at the thought. The ones who survived... the sights they saw...

He tastes bile. 

He won't. Not beside her. He tries to lift her with the force instead. His hand outstretched. Straight out of the grave...

"You... disgust me." He tells her, simply.

In case she hasn't known already.

"Mutual." She growls, she feels his efforts in the Force, to lift her. She clambers up over the edge. She huffs, straightening her skirts. She steps from the edge, waving Morran over. 

He comes close and she stands above the grave. She shoves him in along with Ben - a startled sound. Morran sprawls in the grave below.

"Only one of you is getting out of that grave." She says, crossing her arms.

He sits in silence, his face turned to the dark, somehow stifling wall of earth... 

He hears the yelp and the thud. He turns around.

Morran?! 

His brows lift. He stands. His eyes are wide as he backs away. He already knows the man despises him.

Ben falls pale. He backs away, preparing for attack. He could try to put Morran to sleep... unless Vys controls him... and stops such an assault.

He steals a glimpse up at her.

Making them fight like ants...

He sighs. Weary... frustrated. 

"Vys." He snaps. "This is ridiculous..." 

He could kill Morran with a twist of his hand. Maybe he will...

"Is it?" She hisses. Morran scrambles to his feet, a pitiful whine. 

"Vysera!" He calls. Her face is stone, she ignores him. 

"Make it look real." She says, holding a blaster behind her back. "The Supreme Leader died in a terrible clash of with First Order traitors..." She crouches. 

"I buried him here, to lay him to rest... With his family - the other victims of this awful civil war..."

Ben snarls.

"What are you trying to pull?!" He scowls up at her. "I've had enough of your games!!!" He hisses. "If you want to kill me..." Ben spreads his arms. "Don't be a COWARD, VYSERA!!!" 

Rain spots his skin from above. The greyed sky...

"DO IT!!!" He bellows at her.

Morran rushes forward. What exactly he hopes to accomplish, Vysera isn't certain. His loyalty to her power, his desire for its taste... She'll miss it when it's gone, in a way... He worshipped her. 

"I just need a martyr in the grave, Ben." She shrugs. "Just another message." This one will be to Rey...

Ben evades him as best he can. He's hardly in the mood to throw punches... but clearly, Morran is. It isn't difficult to keep him back but the man still wants to murder him. Ben released his hold on Morran in his final statement to Vys... 

Which was probably a mistake. 

Morran lunges at him unexpectedly and they both collapse on the dirt. Ben grunts, pushing and kicking him away.

He tries to put him to sleep... simultaneously trying to crawl further away, though his back has met with the wall of earth.

Morran struggles, growling. Feral. Determined. He will fight! He throws his fists, trying to kick at Ben's legs - his training. He is fierce and their body size is similar. His movements grow clumsy. His body dropping. Put to sleep, while Ben's form collides with the wall. He crouches, tucked close into that space trying to shield himself, some early bruises littering his arms and legs, he grunts in his pain... there's no use telling him to stop... but he's relieved when Morran seems to droop after Ben's influe-

His heart seizes. His body quakes before him and Ben is deafened by the sound of blaster fire.

Vysera sighs, lifting the blaster - she fires several times into the base of the grave. Morran's body convulses, blood, matter... sprays - emptied... Excessively... 

"Out. Ben." She growls.

When he opens his eyes... he is coated with blood... he can taste it on his tongue...

His first thought is that they're both dead... but he aches... and breathes shallowly...

He can move...

He...

He stares down at Morran, Morran who is collapsed on top of him. He shivers... dirt and blood... his blood is everywhere... it sticks on Ben's face... his hands...

He makes a sound, trying to wipe it away... to get away... but it only spreads.

"H...wh..?!" He can't speak.

Morran lies motionless... and he's... 

Ben's face lands in the palms of his bloody hands. Morran will be... buried next to his mother. It's... it's not right...

He makes an agonised sound.

It was meant to be him...

He gets to his feet, his hands still covering his face. He collapses at the wall, but still stands...

Idiot child. He never understands. Maybe he never will. She moves away. He'll drag his oversized body out of that hole sooner or later. She moves to where Morran had sat... Kylo's hilt. She picks it up, clipping it to her belt before she returns with the shovel. 

She begins to fill it in. Either he'll get out... Or he'll join Morran. It doesn't fit with her plan, but she's no stranger to overcoming obstacles. Is he so daft? Can he not see? She's setting him free. He no longer has to hold the Order... He can walk away.

It's funny... that it's only after standing over him that Ben realises… They really do look similar...

He thinks he will be sick again. He wipes his nose... where Morran managed to throw a punch...

He hangs his head.

He winces. A shaft of dirt is tossed over in his direction. 

Vysera...

Damn her... damn her!

His head falls to the side of the grave and he nearly chokes on the next round of dirt as it falls over his face and hair... it stings his eyes. 

He scrambles up... 

And he's away from... from where he believed he would lie. 

He lies now, on the grass. He looks down on his mother's grave... while covered in dirt and blood... his whispers his final words of goodbye.

"I love you..." he breathes. "I loved you..." 

He coughs... the dirt seems to have... filled his lungs. Either that or it's exhaustion... their fight...

He comes to his feet once more, staggering over to one of the trees...

He vomits up the little that he had in his stomach.

Weak. He's so fucking weak. Vysera sighs, tossing the shovel aside. He won't be covered yet...

She throws in Ben's hilt while he vomits nearby.

He shudders, wiping his lips... he moves away from that patch... he leans, slipping against another tree... until he comes again to his knees. His arms hang around the bark... something solid to hug for support.

He remembers being a child here... and climbing these trees...

His father rattling the branches to make him laugh... and his mother scolding them both... it's too dangerous...

He closes his eyes, his face against the cold bark. 

Too dangerous...

Oh gods... Han and Leia...

He begins to fall away from the bark, too... until he lies in the grass. On his side. He smells the dew... the little droplets of rain beginning to wet where the mud and blood has dried and cracked on his skin and clothes.

She will get that wretch... Lure her here... These idiots are so tied to one another...

What isn't exactly right, she will change. In her mind. Broken. Death broke open a barrier in Rey's mind.

Something less tangible and yet still susceptible to manipulation. Something Ben lacks...

His eyes settle on something... that lies some meters away. Little drops of white... petals, on long, green stalks.

He wanders over there. His fingertips brush the white...

He put one in her brunette hair... and he picks them now.

He returns, each step heavier than the last, back to her grave... 

He'll lay these... 

Her body inside...

He drops the flowers over her. He'll bury her, himself. He refuses to let Vysera do it.

He watches that figure... with each clump building around her concealed limbs... until all is earth. To the ground... returned.

He starts to bury the resistance fighters too... but he's so tired...

He wanders away... to sit awhile. 

Her datapad. He considers loading it up. He considers seeing Hux's message... but he can't. What good will it do?

She finishes her work, coming to sit next to him.

It's better this way... Even if he doesn't understand it. He gets to place them in the dirt. He knows where they are. They are safe where he has laid them. If they had been out there... If Hux had destroyed their ship... They would be lost. Gone. He might never have even known. 

He looks at her. Numbed again...

He longs to run from her. 

He longs to be... free.


End file.
